By Eduardo Morales, PhD–
This year marks the 25th Anniversary of AGUILAS providing HIV prevention services in San Francisco. We are planning to celebrate this anniversary on September 19 from 6 pm to 10 pm at Roccapulco, 3140 Mission Street. We invite you to join us!
Over the past 25 years, AGUILAS has served thousands of Latinx gay and bisexual men through its HIV prevention program. Originally, AGUILAS was founded in 1991 through a group of Latinx LGBTQ+ members of the community and is now the oldest such organization in all of the Americas.
As you know, HIV/AIDS has seriously impacted our community with one out of six with HIV being unaware that they have it, according to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention. Engagement in care remains a challenge for many. Stigma and discrimination are still pervasive.
Our services at AGUILAS include group and individual intervention, monthly social events, HIV and Sexual Disease Infection (SDI) testing in collaboration with the SF AIDS Foundation, and outreach to the community to engage them into services. It is important for our community to know their HIV status, to maintain medical monitoring of their health status and obtain treatment.
At AGUILAS we offer services in English, Spanish, and Portuguese. Our experience is that persons who are engaged in our services tend to remain HIV negative. For those who are HIV positive, they tend to maintain treatment with their medical provider.
We rely on community support. Thus, we invite and hope that you can help to sponsor our event. You can also support the event by underwriting tickets for low-income clients, by making a donation, by spreading the word, and by attending the event. For more information and to purchase tickets, please go to https://bit.ly/2lUEotB .
Eduardo Morales, PhD, is the Executive Director of AGUILAS.
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