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The Women's Institute at GMHC emerged from GMHC's Women & Family Services Department in December 2004 to address the increasing spread of HIV among women of color in New York City.
Our Mission: Guided by the leadership and voices of women living with — and impacted by — HIV and AIDS, the mission of the Women's Institute is to develop, promote, model and share HIV prevention and service programs that are practical, effective and accessible.
By amplifying the impact of these interventions, we seek to challenge the social, economic and political systems that put women at risk and keep them from care and to advance progressive policy debate and systematic change toward that end.
The Women's Institute at GMHC understands that women have many roles. To name a few, we are friends, sisters, lovers, mothers, grandmothers, wives, and girlfriends. This is why we have created a place that supports the whole woman.
The work of the Women's Institute embraces an acknowledgement that AIDS is a woman's issue. In more than two decades of the AIDS epidemic, the proportion of women among all AIDS diagnoses in New York City has climbed from 11% to 32%. African-American and women of color continue to be disproportionately affected. A full 25,000 New York City women — most of them African-American or Latina — are living with a diagnosis of HIV and many more are not even aware that they have the virus. By 2010, women are expected to comprise a full 50% of all new HIV cases in this city.
The Women's Institute at GMHC provides education, prevention, advocacy, and support services to women and families living with and affected by HIV and AIDS. We aim to honor you and your community by challenging social, economic, and political frameworks that put women's health at risk.
The goals of the Women's Institute are to:
- Focus broad attention on recognizing the increasing impact of HIV and AIDS on women, and on addressing the core inequalities that are driving the disease's new trajectory;
- Support the development and broad promulgation of best practice prevention and treatment modalities specifically designed for – and controlled by – women;
- Empower women affected and infected by HIV and AIDS to protect themselves, to take charge of their futures, and to lead the way towards re-defining and responding to the need.
The Women's Institute is not limited to direct service program structure. Rather it is a place where good thinking happens about women and AIDS, where model programs can be incubated and shared, where policies can be challenged and developed.
For more information, please call the Hotline.
HIV/AIDS HOTLINE
800.AIDS.NYC (800.243.7692)
In NYC: 212.807.6655
Email: hotline@gmhc.org
Gay Men's Health Crisis
The Tisch Building
119 West 24 Street
New York, NY 10011
Women's Institute
212.367.1365
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