Nearly a quarter of people living with HIV in the U.S. are women, and the number is only growing.
The highest number of new diagnoses from 2018 to 2022, according to CDC data, was among women ages 25 to 44, and young Black women in particular are among the fastest-growing demographics for new HIV diagnoses. LBTQ women, a community often perceived as low risk for HIV infection, actually face elevated HIV risk due to factors like sex work and penetrative penile intercourse, injection drug use, and sexual violence, as well as limited access to HIV prevention and care.
March 10 is National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, a national observance lead by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Women’s Health. This year’s theme is “Hope, Health, and Healing: Overcoming Barriers to HIV/AIDS Treatment for Women and Girls,” a mission perfectly exemplified by Sisters with a Voice (SWAV) at AID Atlanta.
SWAV offers support groups, seminars, workshops, and community events to HIV-positive women.
“One of the greatest things about the SWAV program is that it builds a community and sisterhood,” Nicole Roebuck, the Executive Director of AID Atlanta, told Georgia Voice. “The women get to support each other. They get to share best practices in terms of becoming better, greater women.”
The reach of SWAV extends beyond HIV-positive women, to whom Imara Canady, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) National Communications Director, calls “HIV-possible women” in an effort to eliminate barriers to care and prevention while combatting HIV stigma and division between those with and without HIV.
“Women who even in the best of times are constantly getting their full regimen of checkups aren’t even thinking to get tested for HIV, because what [mainstream HIV discourse has] messaged is that it’s not impacting [them],” Canady said.
The goal of SWAV is not just to get women connected with the proper HIV medication and health care; it’s to highlight the healing aspect of health care, to make these women feel human and loved.
“What we found to be the missing component of not only HIV care but care in general for folks is having those connections to other people who are also going through the same thing that you’re going through,” Roebuck said. “What do you need? What’s going to help you? Let’s cry it out, talk it out, and help get you to a better place of wellness overall.”
For women who are part of SWAV, the group has served as a crucial reminder that they’re not alone.
“I was diagnosed in 2007, and I didn’t have anybody,” Irene, one of the SWAV members, told Georgia Voice. “There wasn’t nobody that I could sit down with and call and say ‘Hey, I’m feeling this type of way right now.’ Mentally, it was affecting me, it affected me emotionally… When you have women that understand exactly what you’re going through, it’s so much easier to relate and get your point across or say how you feel because they’re actually understanding exactly how I feel because they’re going through the same exact thing that I’m going through.”
Women who are interested in getting connected with Sisters with a Voice can reach out at 404-870-7760 or angela.deloney@aidatlanta.org. To support Sisters with a Voice, visit aidatlanta.org/swav.
