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T he HIV/AIDS Program at APIAHF has been one of the longest running programs with over 15 years of experience advocating for visibility, inclusion, culturally competent services and social justice. APIAHF’s efforts to prioritize HIV/AIDS in Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities are aimed at breaking through the silence and stigma that fuels rising HIV rates. We measure our success, not by the number of trainings we have convened, but by the number of diverse, skilled and creative Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander leaders advocating for change.

APIAHF’s HIV/AIDS Program builds on the legacy of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders living with HIV/AIDS, their family and friends, lesbians, gays, bisexual and transgender activists, and health advocates who made significant and long-lasting contributions to the health and civil rights movement. The AIDS movement has changed the way this society thinks about the correlation between disease and social forces, the politics of public health and the importance of community involvement in programming, research, funding and policymaking. APIAHF’s HIV/AIDS program continues to build our strategies on this legacy.

While we have made significant inroads, there still remains a silence about the growing impact of HIV/AIDS in Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities. There is still much more advocacy to be done. Communities of color need to further build their capacity to respond to ongoing and emerging HIV/AIDS issues. And we need to broaden our movement to speak louder and clearer about the impact of HIV/AIDS in Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islander communities.

OVERALL HIV PROGRAM DESCRIPTION

The HIV/AIDS Program of the Asian and Pacific Islander American Health Forum see ks to increase the policy, programmatic and organizational capacities of community-based organizations (CBOs) and health departments who provide HIV/AIDS services to Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities in the U.S. and U.S. affiliated Pacific jurisdictions.

APIAHF and our partners strive to address major challenges that Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities have systematically faced in HIV/AIDS and health. To focus our efforts, we have prioritized five impact goals to guide our policy, capacity building, mobilization and advocacy work:

Increase the number of health departments that collect and report Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander disaggregated data.
Increase community investment in HIV/AIDS services and organizations in the Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander community.
Increase HIV/AIDS capacity and leadership in the Pacific region.
Increase the number of Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders who learn their HIV status earlier and access culturally competent HIV/AIDS care and treatment services.
Increase acceptance of HIV/AIDS among Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander families and communities.

To achieve these goals, APIAHF’s HIV/AIDS program collaborates with six partners in a National Asian and Pacific Islander HIV capacity building assistance network: Asian & Pacific Islander Coalition on HIV/AIDS in New York, NY; Asian Health Coalition of Illinois in Chicago, IL; Asian & Pacific Islander Wellness Center in San Francisco, CA; Asian Pacific AIDS Intervention Team in Los Angeles, CA; Massachusetts Asian and Pacific Islanders for Health in Boston, MA; and Life Foundation in Honolulu, HI. APIAHF’s HIV/AIDS program also is involved in a research collaboration with Georgetown University and 7 community based organizations to investigate the HIV testing needs among Asian men who have sex with men. APIAHF builds strategic alliances and community leadership skills to advocate for progressive policy change on the local, statewide and national level.

APIAHF provides capacity building assistance (CBA) in the areas of organizational development, HIV program development, community mobilization, and HIV prevention community planning. The CBA is delivered through one-to-one consultations, skills building trainings, peer based coaching and mentorship opportunities, and referrals to culturally and linguistically competent resources. APIAHF is also part of a national anti-HIV stigma campaign, Banyan Tree Project, which commemorates the annual Asian and Pacific Islander HIV/AIDS Awareness Day on May 19.