Trained in Generosity, Suzanne “Africa” Engo Bolts Onto the Frontlines of AIDS to Conquer Ignorance by Dann Dulin She hit the ground running. At the spry age of six, Suzanne “Africa” Engo spoke at the General Assembly of the United Nations on World Children’s Day as junior ambassador for Cameroon—her activist spirit in full throttle. In 2008, at the age of twenty-nine, she once again spoke to the United Nations and confessed, “I am dying of activism.” Her sharply focused energy over two decades to [...]

Prolific Artist and Long-Term AIDS Survivor Steed Taylor Opens Up About His Body of Work, and How Spirituality and Helping Others Have Kept Him Alive by Chip Alfred As a young boy in rural North Carolina, Steed Taylor liked searching for clay in the woods and making things from it. Born in a small town outside Fayetteville, his fascination with art began with sculpture and led to an enduring career in various media—painting, drawing, photography, printmaking, and public art. Steed, who recently turned fifty-one, is [...]

Hill Country Ride for AIDS depends on a lot of sweat equity and it is committed to not letting that energy evaporate into thin air. The Austin, Texas-based Ride returns an average of seventy-six percent of funds raised to its benefitting agencies. That’s above and beyond the sixty percent suggested by The Wise Giving Alliance, a program of the Better Business Bureau. Breaking away Its dedication to this return on investment all started by breaking away from Pallotta TeamWorks’ Texas AIDS Ride. David C. Smith [...]

HIV Has No Face—RCP Has Many by Sean Black “Was your hair free? No. Were your nails free? No. How much would you pay for an HIV test? $20? $10? No, cuz today it’s free.” High school senior Janae Dennis shouts passionately through a bullhorn, encouraging drivers, bicyclists, and foot pedestrians to take advantage of the free rapid HIV testing arranged for and sponsored by a South Florida not-for-profit organization known as The RCP Movement. Standing for Respect Yourself, Check Yourself and Protect Yourself, RCP [...]

Female Condom Campaigns Ring Out Across the U.S. by Chael Needle On March 10, National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day invites communities across the nation to get the word out to a population that has been severely impacted by the disease. When it comes to prevention messages, any campaign, formal or informal, worth its salt would set its sights on the female condom. The Female Health Company (FHC) introduced the first FDA-approved female condom in the early nineties and, just last year, introduced a [...]

In this wretched economy, who doesn’t need affordable housing?! Especially those with little or no income who are also living with HIV and AIDS. But if you live in Cincinnati, Ohio, you don’t have to worry! Caracole is an award-winning agency that began in 1987. The recipient of the 2006 Better Business Bureau Torch Award for Marketplace Ethics, the 2009 ONE Award–Process Category, and the 2008 ONE Award–People Category, its mission is to provide safe transitional housing and support services to people living with HIV/AIDS [...]

Rachel Chapple Recruits Artists, Writers—Everyone—for a Conversation About AIDS by Chael Needle Imagination is the path to empathy. That’s the core of a recently launched on-line HIV awareness and prevention campaign called Real Stories Gallery. The not-for-profit Web site brings together visuals and storytelling into an ongoing and ever-changing conversation, one that interlinks diverse geographic regions, topics, and media. The aim, in part, is to pull visitors out of their spectator role and into a participatory one. Toward this end, the conversation—like any good one—needs to [...]

Photographer George Dinhaupt Explores the Beauty and Importance of Human Diversity by Brent Calderwood Born in Los Angeles, George Dinhaupt has been exhibiting his portrait photography since the early 1990s. Formerly a truck driver by profession, Dinhaupt dusted off his old camera in 1991 after he was sidelined by a car accident; a year later, his work was part of a show in Southern California. Dinhaupt refers to much of his work as “honorific portraiture,” which originally referred to the large-scale iconography of pharaohs and [...]

Hairdressers Use Their Voices & Use Their Power to Style AIDS Awareness by Angela Leroux-Lindsey On November 30, 2010, two events, occurring simultaneously—one in New York, one in Washington, D.C.—displayed perfectly the massive dichotomy (I might even say hypocrisy) that exists within the global power structure’s attitude toward HIV/AIDS. On the one hand, I attended the launch of a new UNESCO-sponsored HIV/AIDS advocacy program at the United Nations; on the other, House Republicans John Boehner and Eric Cantor, with support from the Catholic League, bullied the National [...]

A Conversation with Community Educator and Activist Cathy Elliott-Olufs Text & Photos by Sean Black After ascending a maze of narrow roads signature to the Hollywood Hills, I am greeted by a rosy and familiar face. A slight tilt of her head reveals a cell phone beneath her shiny ginger locks as she splays her free hand in a welcoming gesture. “Almost done,” she silently mouths. Cathy Elliott-Olufs was my media contact for the 20th Annual Divas Simply Singing! event this past October and she [...]