Catch PWN-USA at AIDS 2018

July 17, 2018: Members and staff at Positive Women’s Network – USA are excited and humbled to be representing U.S. women living with HIV at the International AIDS Conference in Amsterdam all week.

Either in Amsterdam or from home, you can follow us on Twitter and get in on the conversation by using the hashtags #PWNspeaks and #AIDS2018! Here is where you can find us in Amsterdam, and our full guide of suggested sessions.

Friday, July 20 – Sunday, July 22

Beurs Van Berlage. Women Now! provides an opportunity to unify women and girls to assess and influence the content and execution of the international discourse on HIV and its intersections with sexual and reproductive wellbeing. This critical conversation is intended to accelerate women’s and girl’s organising and collective action on key issues of race, economic and gender inequality, empowerment, gender-based trauma, violence, sexual and reproductive health and justice. Register here.

Sunday, July 22

Challenging Criminalisation AAI pre-conference

8:30 AM-5:30 PM NEMO Science Museum, Oosterdok 2, 1011 VX Amsterdam, Netherlands. Register at BlackBirdsRSVP. Join us as we mobilise a critical mass of stakeholders to advance a global discourse on the impact of penal provisions on the achievement of the end of the AIDS epidemic and the achievement of the SDGs. Demanding Transparency, Dialogue and Action! An inter-disciplinary and intersectional initiative on un-policing identity, morality, sexuality and bodily autonomy. Naina Khanna is presenting.

Monday, July 23

Beyond Blame pre-conference

8:30 AM-5:00 PM De Balie, Kleine Gartmanplantsoen 10, 1017 Amsterdam Netherlands. Register at Eventbrite. Beyond Blame 2018: Challenging HIV Criminalisation is a one-day meeting for activists, advocates, lawyers, scientists, healthcare professionals, researchers, policymakers, and anyone else interested in working to end HIV criminalisation. The meeting is being convened by the Steering Committee of HIV JUSTICE WORLDWIDE – comprising AIDS Action Europe, AIDS-Free World, ARASA, Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, Global Network of People Living with HIV (GNP+), HIV Justice Network, ICW, SALC, Sero and PWN-USA. Naina Khanna and Arneta Rogers are moderating.

Building Your HIV Tool Box for Women Living with HIV

9:30 AM-10:45 AM Women’s Networking Zone, Global Village, Booth 524 Presenters: Krista Martel, Gina Marie Brown, MSW.

Tuesday, July 24

U=U Workshop: Crafting Supportive Public Health Policy from the Scientific Evidence to Support Community Action

11 AM-12:30 PM Room E102 Following a brief update on the proceedings from the U=U pre-conference, the participants will be guided through the basics of policy creation and explore how the U=U science and advocacy can be harnessed to improve public health policy. Working in groups with facilitators from the U=U team, participants will be guided to create strategies that they can apply to their community activities, workplaces, and health service systems. Presenters: Brent Allan, Bruce Richman, Ian Green, John Blandford, Demetre Daskalakis and Erica Castellanos.

The Well Project Poster Presentation on WRI

12:30 PM-2:30 PM Poster Exhibit Area (ground floor by the main entrance) Visit The Well Project’s booth and learn how they are effecting change in research and policy in women living with and vulnerable to HIV through the Women’s Research Initiative on HIV/AIDS.

Network Empowerment: Creating Space for Us ALL

1 PM-2:30 PM Youth Pavilion Session Room The central objective of this session is to identify the benefits and challenges for the creation of, and participation in, networks of people living with HIV (across all key and vulnerable populations) through a moderator panel with audience discussion and participation by people living with HIV. Participants will raise challenging questions and observations with the panel, enabling all participants to both share and feel the barriers and benefits of networking. The group discussion environment will allow all participants to learn and share the challenges and successes that can only be found in the diverse safe environment that is the International AIDS Conference.

Wednesday, July 25

Thursday, July 26

Policy Fellowship Poster Presentation

12:30 PM-2:30 PM Poster Exhibition area, Hall 1, next to the Global Village (ground floor, by the Main Entrance). Check out how PWN is building the leadership bench of women living with HIV in the federal policy advocacy arena on a 7-foot poster.

The Future Is Female: Women’s Leadership in HIV Criminalization Research and Activism

1 PM-2 PM Youth Pavilion Session Room The objective of this session is to strengthen advocacy efforts to promote laws that do not criminalize HIV transmission, exposure and non-disclosure and respect the rights of people living with HIV. It aims to share best practices of doing research and advocacy using gender and human rights. While it is thought that the laws that promote criminalization of HIV protects women, it is leaving women more vulnerable to persecution and increased violence in their public and private lives. This session allows for an interactive dialogue using feminist frameworks to critically discuss real-life impacts of criminalization on the lives of women and how to best support women to be engaged and lead efforts. It will feature presentations from women-led research and advocate teams and experiences from Eastern Europe and Central Asia, southern Africa, Francophone Africa and North America. Each speaker will give a short presentation on their research methodology and the successes and/or challenges of using it and how it could be applied to other country contexts. By showcasing a diversity of methods for collecting data, capacity building and advocacy for policy reform, this session will empower participants in their regions. There will also be a Q&A and a short interactive piece to engage audience members with a small piece of advocacy. Moderator: Svetlana Moroz; Presenters: Evgeniya Korotkova, Marvelous Muchenje-Marisa, Jasmine Cotnam, Cecile Kazatchkine, Naina Khanna and Sarai Chisala-Tempelhoff.

Who’s on deck? Building the Leadership Bench of Women Living with HIV in the Federal Policy Advocacy Arena