AEGiS-PRn: New Pfizer Foundation Partnerships Take Action to Combat Alarming Rise of HIV/AIDS in the South

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New Pfizer Foundation Partnerships Take Action to Combat Alarming Rise of HIV/AIDS in the South

PRNewswire - November 20, 2003

NEW YORK, Nov. 20 /PRNewswire/ -- Dramatic increases in the number of new HIV/AIDS infections in the South -- especially among women, African Americans and Latinos -- prompted the Pfizer Foundation to invest in prevention programs as the best defense against further spread of the disease in the region with a series of innovative new partnership grants detailed today. The Foundation is funding 24 local HIV/AIDS services organizations in nine southern states to support highly targeted prevention programs to prevent new HIV infections in those populations most at risk for the disease.

The teenage children of parents with HIV, seasonal and migrant farm workers, newly diagnosed Latinas, and women living in housing projects, are among those being served by programs selected by the Pfizer Foundation's new Southern HIV/AIDS Prevention Initiative. The Initiative will direct $3 million over three years to fund prevention programs in the southern region.

Through this collaboration, the Pfizer Foundation awarded more than $1 million today to prevention programs targeting underserved populations in Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas. Individual program grants of up to $50,000 were awarded along with ongoing technical assistance from the Foundation.

"By partnering with organizations in small towns and big cities across the South, we hope to help slow the increasing incidence of HIV/AIDS," said Caroline Roan, secretary of the Pfizer Foundation. "We know that tackling HIV/AIDS -- the most catastrophic health challenge of our time -- demands that we work and partner together as governments and communities, and as corporations and foundations," Roan added.

Grantee Sandra S. McDonald embarked early on HIV/AIDS prevention work distributing prevention and education materials out of the trunk of her car in Atlanta about 17 years ago.

"The South has had its share of HIV/AIDS, but little resources," said McDonald, the founder of Outreach Inc. in Atlanta, which was awarded $50,000 to support the organization's popular HIP HOPPER HIP peer education program for the teen children of clients who are HIV-positive and drug addicted.

"For community-based prevention organizations, the Initiative is one of the most creative and ingenious programs the Pfizer Foundation could have developed," McDonald continued.

The Foundation's new grantees in the South are operating an array of creative programs taking prevention and education messages to the community. These programs include:

* Mother's Voices, a parent-child education program in Miami, Florida is offering Parents Educating Parents workshops and Raising Healthy Kids and Heart 2 Heart seminars.

* International AIDS Empowerment targeting the El Paso border area. Its Caring through Education component trains HIV-positive clients to become spokespeople to tell their own story to school children and youth in the community.

* The AIDS Resource Council in Rome, Georgia is using its Friday Night Out program to help African-American women in rural housing developments learn prevention methods.

* The Methodist Health Foundation/Community HIV Network in Chattanooga, Tennessee is training local barbers and beauticians as peer educators as part of its Project Stylin'.

* The South Mississippi AIDS Task Force in Biloxi, Mississippi is training its peer youth educators to produce and star in their own HIV/AIDS theater presentation. A DVD of the production will be recorded and distributed to schools and youth centers.

Since 2001, 46 percent of the estimated new HIV/AIDS cases in the U.S. have been reported in the South. While the southern region accounts for little more than one-third of the total population, it is where 40 percent of the people estimated to be living with the AIDS call home.

The Pfizer Foundation, established by Pfizer Inc, has worked for a half a century, in partnership with community-based organizations to ensure access to quality healthcare for those individuals most in need.

SOURCE The Pfizer Foundation

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PR031160

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