Coretta Bush has organized "A Time for Healing" to commemorate World Aids Day 2006. The event will be held at Walker Memorial Baptist Church in the Bronx from 6:30-8:30 PM, Eastern Time today (December 2, 2006). The address is 120 East 169th Street, between Jerome Avenue and the Grand Concourse.
Among the key topics to be addressed are:
- The alarming increase in black heterosexual women contracting HIV/AIDS
- African American churches: What has been done? What is being done? What will be done?
The event will also feature a candlelight prayer and altar call.
Everyone listed on the program has professional experience (of one sort or another) working with HIV/AIDS. The featured participants include:
FEATURED SPEAKER: Reverend Barbara Evans, R.N, N.P., M.P.H., M.Div. - Minister for Health and Wholeness at Grace Baptist Church in Mount Vernon, NY; Assistant Pastor and Minister for Christian Education at Faith Mission, Yonkers, NY; and Founder/CEO of the Health Education Institute in Mount Vernon, NY.
FEATURED SPEAKER: A physicianFidelia Tavares, M.D., M.P.H., Director of Women's Health Programs at The Balm in Gilead (self-described as "a not-for-profit, non-governmental organization with an international mission to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS throughout the African Diaspora by building the capacity of faith communities to provide AIDS education and support networks for all people living and affected by HIV/AIDS").
EVENT ORGANIZER/SPEAKER: Coretta Bush, whose father - Reverend Doctor J. Albert Bush - is the pastor at Walker Memorial Baptist Church. Ms. Bush formerly worked as a Corrections Officer in a prison HIV/AIDS ward. What she observed and her conversations with prisoners prompted her to petition the state governor to make condoms and more effective counseling specific to safe-sex and HIV/AIDS available to incarcerated prisoners and those being released.
MISTRESS OF CEREMONIES: Yours truly. I have conducted a number of consulting and research projects addressing various aspects of HIV/AIDS. For example, I consulted with Reverend Evans and other members of the Tri-County HIV/AIDS Coalition several years ago to create and conduct a survey of faith-based institutions in Westchester, Rockland and Orange Counties to address the very questions raised in key topic (2) above. [The survey received kudos from the New York State Department of Health.] In another example, I volunteered as a researcher with Cornell's Anxiety Disorders Clinic to study the incidence of post-traumatic stress disorder among people diagnosed with HIV/AIDS.
I look forward to learning a lot today and to fellowshipping with other attendees. Come join us.###
