SisterSong National Membership meeting

SisterSong National Membership meeting occurred over the weekend and I spoke on the panel about HIV as a reproductive justice issue. SisterSong is the longest standing Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective that is building a movement around reproductive justice. Daxon Dixon Diallo of Sister Love Inc. led the session and my co-panelists included Coco Jervis, Policy Director for CHAMP as well as Marsha Jones and LaCisha Crear of the Afiya Center.

The reproductive justice framework is an important integrated lense that makes it impossible to talk about empowerment of communities in isolation from their social networks. This is an important principle when considering women's health as well as the health of urban populations. Too often, discussions of risk are limited to personal responsibility messaging that completes misses the importance of the social context. Reproductive justice is an important frame for avoiding this pitfall.

My contribution on the panel was to report the outcomes of the Women of Color United meeting in Mexico City at the International AIDS Conference on behalf of Jacqui Patterson. The women in the session were energized by the dialogue concerning transnational solidarity and wanted to know how to advance the six step solidarity plan concerning the intersection of violence against women and HIV/AIDS. After the session many came up to me to try and strategize the ways in which they could support.