April 17, 2009

Dear Friends and Colleagues:

I am delighted to invite you to participate at the Sol Awards 2009. This year’s Sol Award is presented to Ms. Hilda Ortiz-Morales, NP, Mr. Luis Lopez-Detres, and the Hispanic Federation, Inc.

For their extraordinary compassion, leadership and commitment in our shared struggle to improve the lives of those less fortunate.

Proceeds from the event will support HAF to fulfill its mission. Founded in 1985 as the first Latino AIDS organization established in the country, HAF has been a leader in providing innovative prevention education, and care and treatment services to Latinos affected by HIV/AIDS. In 2009, HAF remains the only Latino managed organization fully devoted to providing direct services to Latinos living with HIV in NYC.

In recent years, HAF’s invigorated efforts to expand services geared at preventing the spread of HIV have netted significant results:

• Over 800 youths have graduated from its Latino Youth in Action Program as Peer Educators (LYIAP). This talented legion of Peer Educators penetrates into our Latino neighborhoods with prevention messages and other tools that assist our people remaining free of HIV. Anecdotally speaking, the success of the program is unparalleled. While Latino youths in NYC represent 1/3 of all new HIV infections, graduates of our LYIAP show no evidence as being a part of this dire statistic. What’s more, their efforts generate over 20% of the referrals for HIV prevention workshops, seminars and HIV antibody testing services.
• While Latinos tend to delay HIV antibody testing, which consequently leads to delayed treatment and poor health outcomes, our innovative HIV Testing program has shattered all expectations. Since 2002, nearly 15,000 New Yorkers, 80% of them Latinos, have received free and confidential HIV antibody testing services at HAF. The number of people testing for HIV at HAF has grown exponentially, from 69 in 2002 to nearly 6,000 in 2008. As a result, hundreds of Latinos who have tested positive for HIV have been linked to timely care and treatment services, thus assuring improved health and longevity in spite of HIV.
• In the past five years, HAF has disbursed over $8M in financial assistance to families affected by HIV in New York City. In doing so, families living with HIV, who would otherwise go homeless, have remained unified in affordable and stable housing.
• HAF has remained at the forefront of the battle to continue to safeguard people affected by HIV from bias and discrimination. Specifically, HAF has been relentless in its advocacy efforts to preserve confidentiality and the right of the individual to decide when it is most appropriate for him/her to test for HIV and to disclose results to others.
• HAF subscribes to the philosophy that healthy sex between two consenting adults is good for the body and the soul. In nearly 25 years of existence, HAF has never ceased to provide necessary education and tools for the full enjoyment of sex. Annually, HAF reaches over 30,000 households with messages about responsible sex and distributes more than 100,000 safer sex kits to its constituents. These kits contain condoms, lubricants and informative brochures about safer sex.

Join us and celebrate our accomplishments and support our vision of a society free of HIV. The Sol Awards offers you this opportunity and the honor to celebrate our distinguished honorees who themselves have been relentless in our collective struggle to stop the spread of HIV and to support those already living with HIV.

Taking place at Battery Gardens in NYC, the Sol Awards will be an unforgettable summer evening with wonderful people, delicious food, great music, and an astonishing view of the New York Harbor. Sol Awards will be a reminder of the significant strides that HAF has made in the fight against HIV and AIDS. On behalf of the HAF family, I hope that you will join us at our celebration, The Sol Awards 2009.

Sincerely,

Dr. Robert Aymat
Chairperson

Heriberto Sanchez Soto
Executive Director