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Gilead Sciences has awarded Community Education Group $500,000 over two years to conduct HIV-specific work in West Virginia. This grant will enable CEG to build a statewide coalition to integrate HIV, Viral Hepatitis, and Opioid Epidemic prevention policies and activities, and address the drivers of, and responses to, all three interrelated epidemics.

This is an important step in developing an overall statewide policy agenda in preparation for West Virginia’s inclusion in the Trump administration’s “Ending the HIV Epidemic” initiative.

Stay tuned to CEG’s social media pages on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter (@CEGInWV) for more information as it becomes available.

CEG’s founder and executive director, Toni Young, was featured in a piece published in The New York Times Opinion section: “H.I.V. Is Coming to Rural America And rural America is not ready” by Dr. Steven W. Thrasher (Northwestern University), speaking about West Virginia and rural America’s burgeoning HIV crisis lurking beneath the bucolic scenery: As A. Toni Young, an AIDS activist, puts it, the “epidemic of opioid addiction — fueled by drug companies’ promotion of pain medications beginning in the 1990s — is a crisis for rural regions in part because these regions are completely unprepared to deal with the magnitude of the problem.” Ms. Young founded what is now called the Community Education Group in Washington, D.C., in 1993, originally to address H.I.V. and AIDS in women. An African American lesbian, she has spent most of the past 30 years working to help members of the Black, gay and urban communities it affects.

Follow the link to read the full article: HIV Is Coming To Rural American And Rural America Is Not Ready

A. Toni Young was recently featured in the Slate podcast, What’s Next, in their episode, “HIV’s Threat to Rural America,” alongside Dr. Steven W. Thrasher. Follow the link to listen to the episode: HIV’s Threat to Rural America