AIDS Walk NY: Walking the walk with the Immigration Equality HIV Ban Busters Team
By Christopher Edwards on 05/04/2010 @ 09:30 PM
Against the backdrop of the raging HIV epidemic and resulting policy debate, Immigration Equality was founded as a response to a very specific kind of scapegoating of people with HIV/AIDS: the HIV Travel and Immigration Ban, which specifically singled out persons living with HIV as unwelcome visitors and immigrants. We have worked tireless since 1994 to counter the perspective that people with HIV were pariahs, that HIV/AIDS was a disease that disqualified automatically people from entering the country. Every day, our legal team answer urgent questions from individuals, families and attorneys of those about 22% are HIV-related. We have been on the frontline of the disease from our first days.
In 2010 our work paid off, the ban was finally lifted. Now that we’ve ended the HIV ban, we must work to end HIV.
Enter our Immigration Equality HIV Ban Busters team for the 2010 AIDS Walk NY. Our staff, friends and clients are all joining as we work to raise money for NY-based HIV services organizations beginning with NY’s legendary GMHC. And we need your help. We’d like you to walk with us. You can register here at our team page. We’ve set a goal of recruiting 30 people. We are on our way. Please walk with us May 16th.
Today I’ve been highlighting on @IEquality statistics on HIV in New York. To recap some of the more harrowing numbers: right now, more than 100,000 New Yorkers are living with HIV and thousands don’t know they are infected. According to the NYC Department of Health, New York city has more AIDS cases than Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami, and Washington DC — combined. It’s not hyperbole then of them to the say that New York City “remains the epicenter of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.“
Digging deeper into these numbers, HIV/AIDS affects minority communities at a more disproportional rate than any other public health crisis. More than 80% of all new AiDS diagnosis are within the African Americans and Hispanics. The death rate from AIDS is 9 times higher for black women, 6 times higher black men, and 4 times higher for Hispanics than comparable groups of whites. If we look at NYC and Manhattan statistics certain things stand out too: 1 in 26 men living in Manhattan are HIV positive, 1 in 40 African Americans in all of NYC are HIV positive, and black men 40-49 are particularly hard hit citywide and especially in Manhattan.
If you are unable to walk, we welcome your sponsorship of our team. You can also sponsor our team at our team page. Either way, you’ll be helping to make sure that HIV prevention and healthcare services continue their reach in NYC.
Together we beat the HIV ban, together we can beat HIV.
Comments
Leave a Comment