The HIV is Not a Crime II Training Academy will be held at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, May 17 – 20, 2016 – you can still submit an abstract between now and Friday, February 26!
Positive Women’s Network – USA and the Sero Project, two networks of people living with HIV, are co-organizing this much-anticipated convening.
Got something to say about intersectional leadership skills and coalition building? Propose a workshop!
Is your organization doing dynamic work to address criminal justice issues, while centering the communities most impacted? We need to know about it!
Is an aspect of campaign strategy your strength? Share your skills!
Want to make an immediate impact in the region most heavily affected by not only HIV, but many other symptoms of a history steeped in injustice and trauma? Come help build the movement against HIV criminalization, in the South and across the United States!
HIV is a human rights issue; criminalization of people living with HIV is a social justice issue. The Training Academy will unite and train advocates living with HIV and allies from across the country on strategies and best practices for repealing laws criminalizing people living with and vulnerable to HIV.
Session tracks for the training academy are as follows:
1) Effective and Accountable Leadership – Building relevant and current leadership skills for an effective and intersectional criminalization movement
2) Rights, Policy and Justice – Invite and encourage submissions on issues specific to communities targeted by policing practices due to race, gender identity, sexual orientation, substance use, and other forms of discrimination.
3) Campaign Planning, Strategy and Messaging – Submissions may focus on the “nuts-and-bolts” required in organizing grassroots advocacy efforts, including messaging research and positioning, how to best utilize research to persuade media, policy leaders and legislators and creation and execution of a campaign plan.
We welcome proposals for sessions that are participatory, timely, intersectional, practical, and action-oriented – as well as intergenerational, multiracial, and demonstrating geographic diversity in their analysis and in the team of facilitators.
The deadline for abstract submissions is Friday, February 26, 2016 by 5:00 pm CST (6:00 pm EST, 3:00 PST). Email workshop submissions to [email protected]. You will receive notice of acceptance on Friday, April 1, 2016.
General registration is also open! For more information, please visit our website: www.hivisnotacrime.com.
“It’s time for us to advance the discourse around intersections between HIV criminalization, racist policing, drug policy reform, and sex worker criminalization,” says Naina Khanna, Executive Director of Positive Women’s Network-USA. “We can best do this by building a grassroots movement for policy change, led by the communities most impacted by these issues.”
