LAS VEGAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the largest global AIDS organization, will host a series of concerts and events across the world during the week leading up to the Dec. 1 commemoration of World AIDS Day. All activities will share a common theme – “Keep the Promise on HIV/AIDS!” – a call to action and a reminder to world leaders that with 1 million people still dying of AIDS every year, the epidemic is far from over.
This year’s tribute will coincide with activities marking AHF’s 30-year anniversary, a historic milestone for an organization that began as a small community hospice and rose to become the largest NGO provider of lifesaving HIV treatment and services with over 830,000 clients in care.
World AIDS Day activities will include a wide variety of events, such as free concerts featuring top celebrity performers in Haiti, Mexico City and the United States. Screenings of the AHF documentary “Keeping The Promise: AHF 30 Years” will run in multiple locations. AHF will also provide free HIV testing services, distribute condoms and hold interactive awareness-raising events throughout Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, Europe and the U.S.
In Las Vegas, AHF will host a small reception and screening of the new one-hour documentary, ‘Keeping the Promise—AHF 30 Years’ at The Mob Museum in downtown Las Vegas. Through interviews with key AHF stakeholders from over the years coupled with archival video footage culled from AHF’s 30 years of advocacy, care and activism, ‘Keeping the Promise—AHF 30 Years’ was made by Foxhound Productions and tells a compelling story of AHF’s history while offering a glimpse of, and road map to its future.
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AHF COMMEMORATES WORLD AIDS DAY and 30-YEAR ANNIVERSARY of the ORGANIZATION |
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| WHEN: |
Friday, DECEMBER 1st, 2017
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| WHERE: |
The Mob Museum
300 Steward Avenue Las Vegas, NV 89101 |
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“This event will enable not only AHF staff but also our community partners to see the extent of AHF’s work and impact around the globe,” said Patricia Bermudez, Director of Business and Program Development. “It is important to highlight our various programs and advocacy efforts because they ultimately are centered around the most important part of our work, which is our clients.”
“This year’s World AIDS Day is particularly meaningful for AHF because it marks several historic milestones for us, including AHF having over 830,000 patients in our care around the world as we celebrate our 30th anniversary this year,” said AHF President Michael Weinstein. “When AHF began as the AIDS Hospice Foundation in 1987, we were facing dire circumstances and a lot of uncertainty at the beginning of the epidemic. Each day we were fighting just to keep AIDS patients from having to die in the streets or overcrowded hospitals. Today, even though millions of people with HIV worldwide are thankfully living longer, healthier lives due to access to better medical treatments, the urgency of winning the war against AIDS here in the U.S. and around the globe has diminished. Our hope is that our big-concert events will help keep the spotlight on the need for nations to keep their promise to do all they can to stop HIV/AIDS from claiming additional lives.”
According to UNAIDS, over 36 million people are living with HIV/AIDS around the world. Each year nearly 2 million people become infected with the virus and 1 million die of AIDS-related causes. While millions of people today are accessing lifesaving antiretroviral therapy, millions more still desperately need it. The end of the epidemic is only possible if governments and world leaders Keep the Promise on AIDS.
About AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF)
In 1987, a group of activists founded AIDS Hospice Foundation in Los Angeles to provide a final resting place for terminally ill AIDS patients. Three years later, as lifesaving antiretroviral medical therapy was introduced, AIDS Hospice Foundation changed its name to AIDS Healthcare Foundation in 1990 to signify its new focus on being a medical provider to people living with HIV/AIDS.
AHF funds its mission to rid the world of AIDS through a network of pharmacies, thrift stores, healthcare contracts and other strategic partnerships. Today, as the largest global AIDS organization, AHF currently provides medical care and/or services to over 830,000 individuals in 39 countries, including in the US, Africa, Latin America/Caribbean, the Asia/Pacific Region and Eastern Europe. To learn more about AHF, please visit our website: www.aidshealth.org, find us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/aidshealth and follow us @aidshealthcare.
