LetsKickASS.hiv

(yes, .hiv is domain name)

MISSION

Let’s Kick ASS—AIDS Survivor Syndrome empowering HIV Long-Term Survivors to thrive through connection, engagement, and meaningful action since 2013. We are an all-volunteer, grassroots movement, united in compassion, committed to action, and insisting on visibility.

Let’s Kick ASS also is the originator and managing sponsor of HIV Long-Term Survivors Awareness Day (HLTSAD) which celebrates and honors people living longest with HIV/AIDS. It is an awareness day to inspire change. The selection of the June 5 date for this annual observance coincides with the anniversary of the first official reporting in 1981 of what became known as the AIDS epidemic. It is an Official AIDS Awareness Day celebrated nationally and internationally.

HIV Long-Term Survivors Awareness Day

5 June 2020

Not Our First Pandemic

Not Our First Pandemic is the HLTSAD 2020 theme and a call to action.

Thirty-nine years after the beginning of what would later become known as AIDS on June 5, 2020, there’s a large population of women and men living longest with HIV/AIDS know much about surviving the AIDS pandemic.

Not Our First Pandemic is an invitation to share those insights and wisdom with a world in the gripped by COVID-19 — a new, far more contagious disease. There is still much we do not know about COVID-19. For people who lived through the first decades of AIDS aspects of COVID-19 are familiar, haunting and a vivid reminder of a terrifying time.

With courage and compassion, we survived the darkest decades of the plague. Without access to effective treatments, we were forced to rely on each other and ourselves. As individuals and a community, we exhibited strength we didn’t know we had. We have valuable lessons to teach our community and the world about living and survival — it’s time to embrace our role as elders, teachers, and leaders.

These are anxious, uncertain times for the entire world. Due to shelter-in-place orders people are isolated and alone. Isolation is the safest insurance that we do not contract COVID-19 but when isolation is prevention in a time of crisis has dangerous ramifications.
Read “A Crisis of Isolation Facing HIV Long-Term Survivors Demands Urgent Action” Here>> http://bit.ly/HLTSisolation

#NOTOURFIRSTPANDEMIC #HLTSAD