Art has the powerful capacity to unite communities.
The AIDS Foundation of Chicago (AFC) collaborated with Chicago artist Anastasia Mak, who created a memorable T-shirt design for top fundraisers participating in AFC's upcoming event, AIDS Run & Walk Chicago. As event day approaches, participants are connecting with their communities to support vital HIV/AIDS services. Mak's...
Read more...
After being diagnosed as HIV-positive two years ago, Chicago-based performance artist, multimedia producer, documentarian and teacher Joe Varisco felt an absence: Where are the narratives around HIV that reflected his story, the story and experiences of his communities and their lives?
In the months after his diagnosis, he immersed himself in media representations that told the story...
Read more...
The best way so solve a problem is to know it from all angles. That’s why Alan Johnson, Linkage to Care Coordinator at the AIDS Foundation of Chicago, enrolled in the African American HIV University Science and Treatment College , a year-long research and training program that examines HIV/AIDS from every angle.
Sponsored by the Black AIDS Institute and the University of California,...
Read more...
HIV — it’s not just a problem in large metropolitan areas. In fact, about one-third of the HIV/AIDS cases in Illinois are among people living outside of Chicago. That’s why places like Open Door Clinic are needed — to serve people living with and at increased vulnerability for HIV in places like Aurora and Elgin.
Sacha Urban, a passionate HIV/AIDS advocate and longtime...
Read more...
How do you overcome stigma — the dark shadow over an idea or thing that makes people jump to drastic conclusions? For Brad Setter, it’s all about awareness — bringing the thing that’s so stigmatized into the public light to get rid of the shadow.
Setter, a 24-year-old student at College of DuPage, knows a thing or two about stigma. He served in the US Marine Corps from...
Read more...
In an invited talk at the 2014 STD Prevention Conference , the AIDS Foundation of Chicago’s Director of Research, Evaluation and Data Services, Amy Johnson, along with UIC Associate Professor Supriya Mehta, discussed the application of search engine data to sexually transmitted disease (STD) surveillance. Highlighting their current study published in the Journal of Sexually Transmitted Diseases...
Read more...
Kristina Rasmussen, Executive Vice President of the Illinois Policy Institute, took Illinois to task by calling out its $1 million budget for condoms and lubricant.
Every new HIV case costs an estimated $390,000 in lifetime medical costs, much of which is paid for by the state. HIV cases are rising fastest among young gay and bisexual men (and particularly young African Americans and...
Read more...
So much can change in ten years — in world history, in fashion trends and in the way someone manages his relationship with HIV/AIDS.
Ten years ago, Armando Ramirez received some upsetting news: he was HIV-positive. For three years before that, he had been on his own, rejected by his family after Ramirez told them he is gay.
Ramirez, now 34 years old and living in...
Read more...
On a late night at the corner of 47th and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, anything can happen. If this popular hangout spot for gay, transgender, and homeless folks on Chicago's South Side could talk, it would have a lot to say. And I wanted to get in on that conversation.
As the prevention program manager for AIDS Foundation of Chicago (AFC), it's my job to know who in Chicago needs...
Read more...
Curtis Lewis is just like many 22-year-olds: he is a student at Purdue University-Calumet in Hammond, IN. And when he’s not studying, he’s also an actor: he will be featured in Gary Shakespeare Company’s production of Romeo and Juliet as Romeo this summer.
Lewis is also a sexually active gay male, and he’s taking preventive measures to keep himself HIV-negative. Curtis...
Read more...
