Are you aware that a woman tests positive for HIV every 35 minutes in the United States?

Are you aware that one in four Americans living with HIV is a woman?

Are you aware that HIV/AIDS is a growing problem for women and girls in our region, particularly African-American women and girls?  The District of Columbia and Maryland had the highest and second-highest women’s AIDS case rates in the country in 2007 (90.2 cases per 100,000 population for DC and 22.2 cases per 100,000 population for Maryland) (http://www.statehealthfacts.org/)?  For more on the specifics in D.C., you can read a previous blog of mine by clicking here.

Maybe you can you guess from my questions that today is National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day.

I hope that increased awareness leads us to recognize that we must act – for ourselves and for others – because lives are literally on the line.  I hope we can act together to improve:

• Prevention strategies that address the dominant ways women acquire HIV: sex with men who are infected and injection drug use (much more of an issue for women than for men).
• The availability of routine HIV testing in places women already go for health and other services for themselves and their children. (By the way: Do you know your HIV status?)
• Attention to treatment, including to AIDS drugs but also for the many health conditions that occur with HIV, such as alcohol and drug abuse and mental illness.
• Women’s empowerment.  In D.C. this has started with a new effort – the first in the nation – to make the newly re-designed female condom widely available for free (thanks to the hard work of the Washington AIDS Partnership and support from the MAC AIDS Fund — and The Women’s Foundation’s own Julie Leibee).
• Support for organizations that help individual women with HIV in our community, including The Women’s Collective and Our Place, DC (both Grantee Partners of The Women’s Foundation), as well as organizations that bring this issue and solutions to it to the attention of policy makers and the public, such as DC Appleseed (another Grantee Partner).

Wishing you act-ful awareness on March 10th – and every other day.

Gwen is a Program Officer at Washington Area Women’s Foundation.

Days after the District made the shocking announcement that $20 million had been cut from the homeless services budget for the 2010 fiscal year, advocates and organizations that provide shelter for the homeless are still reeling. One of The Women’s Foundation grantee partners is reaching out for help – as winter approaches and the organizations that assist the homeless face a crisis.

Calvary Women’s Services was notified Monday, September 28, by The Community Partnership for the Prevention of Homelessness (TCP) that contract funding for Calvary would be cut by nearly $75,000 beginning October 1st.  These funds support safe housing and other services for 150 homeless women each year.  TCP is an independent, non-profit corporation that coordinates DC’s Continuum of Care homeless services.

Calvary is one of many social service providers notified of cuts to their existing contracts. Emergency, transitional and supported permanent housing programs were all targeted as the city attempted to close an ever-widening budget gap.  The impact of these cuts on the overall homeless services system is going to be severe, with some housing programs reducing their services and others likely closing programs. 

Although these cuts may provide some immediate relief to the city’s budget problems, the real impact of the cuts will be felt by those in need of safe housing and support services.  Women who have already lost their jobs in this economic crisis will have fewer services and housing options available to them. These cuts will make women who are already at-risk much more likely to end up living on the streets or in unsafe situations.

The women who come to programs like Calvary are survivors of violence, women struggling with mental illness, and women working to overcome addictions.  At Calvary we make sure they have access to all of the services they need to address these challenges – in addition to providing a safe place to live.

We know that programs like ours work.  Every five days a woman moves out of Calvary and into her own home.

We have always relied on the support of both public funding and private donations to make our programs possible.  In the past, supporters have helped us close gaps like this one, and I am hopeful that the community will step up once again.  But I am also concerned that this gap may be too wide for our generous donors to close.

The coming months will be challenging ones for organizations like Calvary, as we try to find ways to continue to provide women in this community with critical, life changing services.  More so, they will be challenging months for women who need services like ours, as they face closed doors and reduced services at programs across the city.

 You can make a difference.  Support Calvary – or another agency facing these cuts – today. 

 Volunteer, donate or learn more at www.calvaryservices.org.

Kris Thompson is the Executive Director of Calvary Women’s Services, recognized as a 2009 Leadership Awardee by The Women’s Foundation.  Learn more about them on their Web site or on Facebook.

We’ve partnered with The Urban Institute to provide continuing information and resources related to the goals of Stepping Stones. Below you’ll find a summary of the latest research on issues of economic security and financial independence for women and their families. This research is summarized and compiled for The Women’s Foundation by Liza Getsinger of The Urban Institute, NeighborhoodInfo DC.

The following are excerpts of the research update.  For the full update, including summarized key findings, click here.

Financial Education and Wealth Creation News
The median household income in the District of Columbia rose from $56,400 in 2007 to $57,900 in 2008, according to the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey; however, DC residents with the lowest levels of education saw their incomes fall significantly from 2007 to 2008. (Full text)

Jobs and Business Ownership News
One fifth of all families with children are headed by working single mothers. The families of single mothers have a high poverty rate – 28.3 percent. The persistent gender wage gap continues: in 2007, women who worked full-time, year-round earned only 78 cents for every dollar earned by full-time, year-round male workers. These findings suggest that a number of changes in policy and practice are needed to improve women’s earnings. You can read the details about these findings by clicking here.

Child Care and Early Education News
A new Child Trends research brief explores the issues that judges consider when making decisions about termination of parental rights (TPR) and adoption of foster children. Several judges reported that the absence of TPR limits the adoption recruitment efforts of the child welfare agency. Some judges report a need for more discussions with older children to explore and address their concerns about adoption. (Full text)

Health and Safety News
Today, there are about 1.1 million people with HIV/AIDS living in the U.S., including nearly 280,000 women. Women of color, particularly black women, are disproportionately affected by HIV/AIDS. The impact of HIV on younger women is particularly notable – more than 6 in 10 new HIV infections among women were among those ages 13-39 in 2006. 76% of women with HIV/AIDS who were receiving medical care had children under 18 in their homes, which may complicate their ability to manage their illness. (Full text)

Other News and Research
The Urban Institute surveyed District permanent supportive housing (PSH) agencies and specific PSH projects. The research includes a look at how the District might move forward toward fulfilling its commitment to create 2,500 new units of PSH and eliminate chronic homelessness. (Full text)

Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity, a national foundation-led initiative, is excited to collaborate with The Women’s Foundation to bring you the latest news and analysis on women and poverty.

Spotlight is the go-to site for news and ideas about fighting poverty.

For daily updates and links to past articles, check out “Women and Poverty.”  It’s a new section of our site with a comprehensive collection of recent news and analysis on women and poverty.

Along with these daily updates, continue to visit TheWomensFoundation.org for our weekly rundown of the top news stories on women and poverty every week.

Here’s this week’s news:

• The Washington Post tells the story of how Lawanda Madden and her children became homeless. Her family joins an influx of recently homeless single-mother families now relying on relatives for shelter and food.
• The Times-Picayune profiles Looking Good, a nonprofit founded by Hope Encalada that provides low-income women with professional clothing, makeovers and a self-confidence boost in preparation for job interviews.
• Many low-income mothers will be left without affordable childcare if day care centers close due to budget cuts, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.
• The Boston Globe features a piece on a movement in Providence to close down “spas,” or thinly veiled brothels.  Rhode Island is the only state in the U.S. that permits indoor prostitution.
• The Times Picayune reports on a teen panel on poverty and drugs, which included suggestions from several young women living in impoverished neighborhoods.

To learn more about Spotlight, visit www.spotlightonpoverty.org.  To sign up for our weekly updates with the latest news, opinion and research from around the country, click here.

The Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity Team

Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity is a foundation-led, non-partisan initiative aimed at ensuring that our political leaders take significant actions to reduce poverty and increase opportunity in the United States. We bring together diverse perspectives from the political, policy, advocacy and foundation communities to engage in an ongoing dialogue focused on finding genuine solutions to the economic hardship confronting millions of Americans.

Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity, a national foundation-led initiative, is excited to collaborate with The Women’s Foundation to bring you the latest news and analysis on women and poverty.

Spotlight is the go-to site for news and ideas about fighting poverty.

For daily updates and links to past articles, check out “Women and Poverty.” It’s a new section of our site with a comprehensive collection of recent news and analysis on women and poverty.

Along with these daily updates, continue to visit TheWomensFoundation.org for our weekly rundown of the top news stories on women and poverty every Friday.

Here’s this week’s news:

• The Times-Picayune profiled Ms. Grace, one of the first women to be helped by a federally-funded housing program for the disabled  and homeless.
• The Orlando Sentinel reports on the plight of several uninsured, low-income women. These include Michele Townsen, who let an infection fester for three weeks because she feared high medical bills.
• Evelyn Coke, who as an elderly, low-income woman devoted herself to fighting for fair treatment and better pay for herself and other overworked in-home aids, died this week at the age of 74, as reported in the New York Times.
• Virginia’s infant mortality rate has reached an all-time low, which state officials attribute to the creation of a commission on infant mortality in 2006 and better prenatal care for low-income women. This includes information on pregnancy and young children, according to the Washington Post.

 

• The Los Angeles Times highlights the story of 16-year-old Jazmine, who was able to temporarily escape her life of drugs and homelessness at a camp this summer thanks to a program from American Family Housing, a transitional housing program that provides counseling and life-skills training to low-income families.

To learn more about Spotlight, visit www.spotlightonpoverty.org.  To sign up for our weekly updates with the latest news, opinion and research from around the country, click here.

The Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity Team

Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity is a foundation-led, non-partisan initiative aimed at ensuring that our political leaders take significant actions to reduce poverty and increase opportunity in the United States. We bring together diverse perspectives from the political, policy, advocacy and foundation communities to engage in an ongoing dialogue focused on finding genuine solutions to the economic hardship confronting millions of Americans.

As part of our ongoing commitment – in partnership with The Urban Institute – to providing information and resources related to the goals of Stepping Stones, please find below a summary of recent research on issues of economic security and financial independence for women and their families. This research is summarized and complied for The Women’s Foundation by Liza Getsinger of The Urban Institute, NeighborhoodInfo DC.

Below are excerpts of the research update.  For the full research update, including summarized key findings, click here.

Financial Education and Wealth Creation News

The National Council of Negro Women conducts a study to identify potential lending disparities in gender and race among African-American, Hispanic, and Caucasian borrowers, particularly as the foreclosure crisis spreads.  (Full text) 

Jobs and Business Ownership News

The Brookings Institution publishes research on the extent to which the recession has affected urban and suburban communities across the country and looks looks within the nation’s 100 largest metro areas to examine recent unemployment trends in their cities and suburbs. (Abstract) (Full text)

Child Care and Early Education News

A new Child Trends study commissioned by the Council of Chief State School Officers finds disparities between poor, at-risk children and more advantaged children as early as 9 months of age–extending prior research that primarily focuses on disparities at kindergarten entry and beyond. (Abstract) (Full text)

Health and Safety News

The Urban Institute identifies ways to reduce obesity using many of the same strategies used in the war against tobacco.  (Introduction) (Full text)

Other News and Research

The Economic Mobility Project investigates neighborhoods and the black-white mobility gap, including whether neighborhood poverty in childhood impacts the ability of both black and white adults to move up or down the income ladder relative to the position their parents held and whether changes in neighborhood poverty rates experienced by black children affected their adult incomes, earnings, and wealth. (Abstract) (Full text)

I wanted to share a story from a recent case of human trafficking in D.C. that Polaris Project handled to show the impact of the work we’re doing and how The Women’s Foundation plays a role in it. 

Like many others, Rosa* was struggling to find employment.  While at the mall, Rosa was handed a business card and told about the opportunity to become a waitress. Rosa called the number and set up an interview.  When she arrived, she was pulled into a vehicle and taken to a brothel.  Rosa was forced into prostitution and suffered horrific abuse and threats. Thankfully, she found a moment to escape, ran outside, and flagged down a moving bus.  The driver called 9-1-1. Once the police arrived and identified Rosa as a trafficking victim, they immediately contacted our on-call staff to provide emergency assistance.

We provided Rosa with her first meal in three days and clothing and accompanied her to the hospital for treatment.  Rosa is steadily recovering.  She secured safe housing and hopes to reconnect with her family members living outside of the United States.

The Women’s Foundation has been really ahead of the curve in recognizing human trafficking as a grave danger to women and girls in our community and across the country. 

I wish that the story I provided was a rare case, but we help people in similar situations on a regular basis.  With the support of The Women’s Foundation, Polaris Project has helped 50 trafficking victims locally in 2009 and provided more than 850 nights of shelter through our transitional housing program in D.C.

The support The Women’s Foundation has provided has been really important to our local efforts.

*Name was changed to protect the identity of the client.

Tayler Wilhelm is the Senior Development Officer with Polaris Project, a Grantee Partner of The Women’s Foundation and winner of the 2009 Leadership Awards online vote.

If there’s a time to tackle the virtual frontier, it’s now.

DC Abortion Fund is a grassroots nonprofit that is 100 percent volunteer-run that provides financial assistance to low-income women who are seeking abortions but cannot afford the full cost of the procedure.  The dedicated people that keep the confidential hotline running do it on their lunch breaks and at dinnertime. 

I sit at my desk each day and have one Twitter profile up for my job and another one up for DCAF.

With a budget of under $60,000 each year, I look for every free or low-cost option out there to raise DCAF’s profile in the community.  This keeps about 95 percent of our funds free to increase women’s access to reproductive healthcare.

Social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter are growing bigger every day and are now a major vehicle for 20 and 30-something people to get news and information.  But I don’t want to stop there. These social networking sites are easy-to-use and create a space for every person to be an advocate for DCAF – through a tweet, reposting a link, joining a Cause or RSVPing to an event.

Others see what you’re doing and join in – it’s the essence of grassroots organizing.

DCAF is plugged in and communicates with everyone through our Website, our E-news, and our Facebook page – everyone except our clients.  The women we serve have cut off their cable, pawned Christmas presents and skipped their electricity bills for months to keep a roof over their heads.  Our clients are not looking for DCAF in the online world; they hear about us from friends and family, or get referred to us by our partner clinics.

In years past, DCAF advised clients to sell things – a TV, a bike – anything that could give them an extra $20.  But in these tough economic times, they sold everything they could months ago.  They are in debt.  They are often out of work.  Many have kids and are struggling to keep food on the table.  They turn to us because the idea of increasing the size of their family during this recession is simply not a reality.

To those who have access to the Internet superhighway, join our networks and follow DCAF on Twitter and Facebook.  It’s the best way for nonprofits like us to have a conversation with you. 

And become an activist – an Internet activist – and harness the power you have through your computer or Blackberry.

It has never been clearer; we are only as strong as the community that supports us.  The opportunity to plug in is there for all of us reading this blog and we must open the door. 

It’s knocking!

Visit our Website and sign-up for the newsletter.
Join our Facebook Cause (DC Abortion Fund) or Fan Page (DCAF).
Follow us on Twitter.

Allison Mitchell is a member of DC Abortion Fund’s board of directors.  DC Abortion Fund is a Grantee Partner of The Women’s Foundation.

As part of our ongoing commitment – in partnership with The Urban Institute – to providing information and resources related to the goals of Stepping Stones, please find below a summary of recent research on issues of economic security and financial independence for women and their families. This research is summarized and complied for The Women’s Foundation by Liza Getsinger of The Urban Institute, NeighborhoodInfo DC.  

Financial Education and Wealth Creation News

The Urban Institute provides statistics on the work effort, earnings, health care access and other characteristics of low-income families. (Abstract) (Full Text)

 Jobs and Business Ownership News

The Brookings Institution investigates the accessibility of middle-wage jobs — good paying jobs for the less-educated workers — for those without bachelor’s degrees in 204 metropolitan areas. (Abstract) (Full Text)

Child Care and Early Education

The National Institute for Early Education Research examines the journeys of six states — Florida, Georgia, Oklahoma, Illinois, New York, and West Virginia — in achieving a plan for preschool for all. (Intro) (Full Text)

Health and Safety News

The Urban Institute explores the unique experiences of women exiting prison, focusing on a representative sample of 142 women who were released from Texas prisons and state jails in 2005 and returned to Houston communities. (Intro) (Full Text)

Other News and Research

The Urban Institute provides comprehensive data indicators and analysis on the state of older youth (age 12-24) in the District and examines  the role of area nonprofits that work with young people, their families, and neighborhoods. (Abstract) (Full Text)

The other day, Phyllis mentioned a New York Times article to me on how girls in New York weren’t able to participate in sports because they had to stay home to baby sit and do other chores within the family.

I looked it up immediately, because it seemed so impossible to me.  It sounded too much like the same dynamics at work that prevented girls from finishing school in Africa, which I’ve posted about before.

And yet there it was in the New York Times, the exact same dynamics at work preventing girls from accessing sports, which can and do play a critical role in the development of self-esteem, healthy habits, physical strength, friendships, and academic success.

The article explains, "Soledad’s after-school routine is different from that of her cousin Karl Pierre…who plays basketball nearly every day after school and says he dreams of earning a college basketball scholarship. Karl lives in an apartment with Soledad, her father, their grandmother and other relatives. But boys in the family are not asked to baby-sit.  ‘It’s not fair,’ said Soledad, who also hopes to play college basketball. But if she were to complain, she said, ‘They’d just make me stay home for a week.’"

In addition to the unequal chore divide, girls’ parents also tend to resist their participation in sports due to concerns about safety.

The article states, "Tiffany’s father had reason to be suspicious, Mr. Mariner said later, because she had previously used basketball as a cover when she wanted to leave the house. Mr. Binning said he relented that day because ‘the coach showed me she’s in good hands.’  Parents rarely question their sons’ whereabouts, Mr. Mariner said.  ‘I could take my boys to another state, and I wouldn’t get these calls,’ he said. ‘They’d probably say, ‘Oh, you’re back so soon?’”

As a teacher in West Africa, I used to hear these arguments all the time, only about how these were barriers to parents sending their girls to school.  "We need her at home to get water," they would say, or, "The school is too far, it’s not safe for her to walk."

Just like the girls in this article, the girls I taught in Benin didn’t have the ability to contradict or combat these challenges. 

And no one seemed very interested in considering making the route to school safer or having their sons share the duties of fetching water.

So their daughters stayed at home.  They dropped out of school.  They watched their brothers go on to complete school and compete in soccer games, when they could get away from their chores long enough to do that.

When I am reminded that these trends also exist here, I grow concerned that what we’re seeing in sports could soon be–or is already–reflected in the arts, in access to clubs and extra curricular activities, then in access to study time and, eventually, academic success.

In our work here at The Women’s Foundation, we see the impact of this as well, which is why we’re funding programs that provide access for girls to tennis and other sports and arts opportunities. 

For me, a true understanding of the importance of access to sports came when I was speaking with Sister Mary Bourdon, the head of one of our Grantee Partners, the Washington Middle School for Girls (WMSG). 

Like the schools described in the New York Times article, WMSG can’t afford fully funded sports teams for the girls.  They provide what they can, but it’s sporadic and not nearly at the level of what suburban schools provide.

As a woman who grew up in public schools where girls’ sports were funded and available (though I still regret that there was no girls’ soccer team once I hit high school), the impact of this had never fully hit home for me until Sister Mary explained that when her girls move on to high school, it’s challenging for them to relate to or build friendships with the girls they meet in their new high schools because they don’t have the athletic skills to be on the teams where so many of those bonds and friendships are formed.

And their peers have been playing these sports for years.

A few weeks later, I had the pleasure of meeting with Joey, a student at WMSG, who would speak at our Leadership Luncheon that year.  When I asked her what she’d do if her school had enough funds, one of her top priorities was sports.

"Some sports teams, " Joey told me, "Especially a track team!  I would love that because I love to run. I even run faster than all the boys in my neighborhood!"

As many are taking stock of the progress made from and the challenges still to come with Title IX, Joey’s words still ring in my ears as the most compelling case to make sure that girls have equal access to sports as boys.

Because given equal ground, girls can outrun, or at least run with, all the boys!

Lisa Kays is The Women’s Foundation’s Director of Communications.