NAESM & Gilead Leadership Forums

NAESM Inc., in partnership with Gilead Sciences Inc. is pleased to announce a year-long series of Leadership Forums intended to support national mobilization of Black gay, bisexual and same-gender-loving men toward ending the HIV epidemic within the Black Gay/Bi/SGL community. These Leadership Forums will bring together Black Gay/Bi/SGL organizational leaders and HIV advocates to support national and local efforts to end the HIV epidemic. The series will launch on May 6, 2021 with a forum on the contribution that political leadership and political organizing can make toward ending the HIV epidemic. Three additional forums will address the roles that media and messaging, community-based participatory research, and community health needs assessment can each play in ending the epidemic.

Alvan Quamina, Executive Director of NAESM, shared the strategic intentions for the bi-monthly forums. “The vision is to have a series of multi-level Black Gay/Bi/SGL community mobilization convenings designed to support coordinated action to end the HIV epidemic. We hope to catalyze the kind of coordinated community mobilization that we haven’t seen since the Minority AIDs Initiative was birthed in the late 1990s.”

Hoped-for outcomes include increased Black Gay/Bi/SGL participation in local Ending the HIV Epidemic Initiative (EHE) planning efforts, coordinated messaging from Black Gay/Bi/SGL communities concerning EHE planning and policy directions, and increased Black SGL/MSM community mobilization toward ending the HIV epidemic. At a minimum, the project will produce a publicly available report summarizing the work undertaken, lessons learned, and milestones achieved. Participants also will develop, publicize and seek to implement a community mobilization plan for the national Black Gay/Bi/SGL community.

For additional information, or to request to be added to the participant list, please contact Alvan Quamina at alvanq@naesm.org.