March 10th is National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day. The Red Pump Project is a nationwide initiative to raise awareness about the increasing impact of HIV/AIDS on women and girls and to encourage ladies to take action. While progress has definitely been made in the areas of AIDS prevention and treatment, women still represent 27% of all new AIDS diagnoses, with African-American women accounting for 66% of that group.
According to The Red Pump Project site, “[e]very 35 minutes, a woman tests positive for HIV in the United States.”
There's no doubt that we can change that fact and awareness is the first step.
In Haiti, my daughter's birth country, an estimated 2.2 percent of adults are HIV positive. Haiti has what USAID calls a generalized HIV/AIDS epidemic. As in many countries, there are substantial differences in the burden of the epidemic. Women are disproportionately affected, which means that children are disproportionately affected. (Source: US AID Haiti HIV/AIDS Health Profile.) It may also interest you to know that the USA is one of few countries that allows adoption of HIV positive children.
That's all. Thanks for reading; I appreciated the awareness that this initiative brought to me and I wanted to pass it on. Okay, I lied. One more thing. If you haven't experienced The Julie Project, I strongly recommend it. It's a painful, astonishing look at the devastating impact of AIDS on one young woman's life. Just don't click that link until you have an hour or so because you won't be able to leave your computer until you've seen the entire project. And take tissues.
xoxo, Stacey
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