Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 28, 2009

Con­tact:
Cathy D. Adams
CDA Con­sult­ing Group
(510) 653‑4085
cdagroup@aol.com

The National Coali­tion of 100 Black Women, Inc., Oak­land Bay Area Chap­ter presents “The Real Con­ver­sa­tion — Sis­tahs Get­ting Real About HIV/AIDS”, a One Day Sem­i­nar Dis­cussing Effec­tive Inter­ven­tions to Reduce Risk Behav­iors Among African Amer­i­can Women. New Linen Life Gallery, San Lean­dro, CA.

(Oak­land, CA) — The National Coali­tion of 100 Black Women, Inc., Oak­land Bay Area Chap­ter (NCBW/OBAC) “Sis­tahs Get­ting Real About HIV/AIDS” in affil­i­a­tion with The National Asso­ci­a­tion of Woman Busi­ness Own­ers (NAWBO) will present “The Real Con­ver­sa­tion — Sis­tahs Get­ting Real About HIV/AIDS”, a one day sem­i­nar dis­cussing Effec­tive Inter­ven­tions to Reduce Risk Behav­iors Among African Amer­i­can Women on Sat­ur­day, July 25, in con­junc­tion with ACT Against AIDS Lead­er­ship Ini­tia­tive (AAALI). The fea­tured Guest Speaker will be Tony R.Wafford, National Direc­tor of Health and Well­ness National Action Net­work The sem­i­nar is free and will include top­ics such as: Causes of HIV and AIDS, Their Symp­toms and How the Dis­eases are Trans­mit­ted, Alter­ing Atti­tudes and Behav­ior Pat­terns Among African Amer­i­can Women, and Liv­ing with HIV — The Story of Pos­i­tive Females — “Our Story”.  The event is being held at New Linen Life Gallery located at 770 E. 14th Street, Down­town San Lean­dro, CA, from 10am – 7pm with a recep­tion to fol­low.   Cal-Pep will pro­vide free HIV test­ing open to the pub­lic through­out the day.

ACT Against AIDS Lead­er­ship Ini­tia­tive (AAALI) is a part­ner­ship with 14 of the nation’s lead­ing African-American civic orga­ni­za­tions to inte­grate HIV pre­ven­tion into each organization’s out­reach pro­grams. The pur­pose of this event is to edu­cate Black women across mul­ti­ple sec­tors about the impact HIV/AIDS in the African Amer­i­can com­mu­nity. This sem­i­nar will address “The Real Con­ver­sa­tion” of Effec­tive Inter­ven­tions to Reduce Risk Behav­iors Among African Amer­i­can Women.

Oak­land has the high­est con­cen­tra­tion of HIV cases in Alameda County and nation­ally of new HIV infec­tions that occur each year over half occur in peo­ple 25 years or younger. AIDS is also steadily increas­ing among African Amer­i­can teens. African Amer­i­can teens make up only 16% of U.S. teenagers, but accounted for 69% of new AIDS cases among teens in 2005 accord­ing to the Kaiser Fam­ily Foun­da­tion. Knowl­edge of one’s sta­tus and HIV/AIDS edu­ca­tion is cru­cial to the pre­ven­tion of HIV and AIDS. CAL-PEP’S Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, Glo­ria Lock­ett, a nation­ally known edu­ca­tor, believes that “AIDS is 100% pre­ventable” and CAL-PEP encour­ages every­one to get tested. CAL-PEP will admin­is­ter the OraQuick rapid HIV test free of charge. No nee­dles are required (oral sam­ple only, no blood) and results are pro­vided within 20 min­utes. In addi­tion to test­ing, HIV test coun­selors will pro­vide risk reduc­tion coun­sel­ing dur­ing the twenty-minute wait. Safer sex tips and safe sex kits will also be pro­vided for all those being tested.

To get a free HIV test at any­time con­tact Jamila Shipp at CAL-PEP at (510) 874‑7850. For infor­ma­tion about NCBW’s “Sis­tahs Get­ting Real About HIV/AIDS” call (510) 287‑2534 or call (510) 653‑4085 or log on to the web­site www.onehundredblackwomen.com.

The Oakland-Bay Area Chap­ter of NCBW is com­mit­ted to pro­vid­ing pro­grams that increase the par­tic­i­pa­tion of African Amer­i­can women in eco­nomic, civic, entre­pre­neur­ship, and human ser­vices are­nas of their respec­tive com­mu­ni­ties through edu­ca­tion, schol­ar­ship, and col­lab­o­ra­tion. The “Sistah’s Get­ting Real About HIV/AIDS” ini­tia­tive was cre­ated by the Oak­land – Bay Area Chap­ter and fur­ther expanded to a  nation-wide Coali­tion effort.

In 2008–2009, NCBW OBAC in part­ner­ship with com­mu­nity agen­cies, pro­fes­sion­als, faith-based orga­ni­za­tions and busi­nesses coor­di­nated two com­mu­nity forums in San Fran­cisco and Oak­land, where an aver­age of 150 peo­ple were in atten­dance.  NCBW/OBAC spon­sors an annual bill­board media cam­paign, which includes twelve bill­boards strate­gi­cally placed in low-to-moderate income neigh­bor­hoods around the Bay Area.

The San Fran­cisco Bay Area chap­ter of NAWBO® is an orga­ni­za­tion that has been pro­vid­ing a voice and vision for women busi­ness own­ers for over 25 years. NAWBO®-SFBA is the only orga­ni­za­tion com­prised exclu­sively of women busi­ness own­ers that inte­grates val­ues, prof­its, tech­nol­ogy and peo­ple – its motto is to help mem­bers grow, thrive and lead in their businesses.

The Bay Area chap­ter of NAWBO®-SFBA has been hon­or­ing Bay Area women entre­pre­neurs at the Women Entre­pre­neur of the Year Awards each year for the last 25 years. The NAWBO®-SFBA mem­ber­ship rep­re­sents women in the North Bay, East Bay, San Fran­cisco and the Penin­sula and is com­prised of a diverse range of busi­nesses, from con­struc­tion to archi­tec­ture to sleep­wear design.