For members of C2PLA June isn’t just the halfway point for the year, for many of us, it’s also Pride Month. Gay Pride, LGBT Pride or simply Pride is the positive stance against discrimination and violence toward lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people to promote their self-affirmation, increase their visibility as a social group, build community, and celebrate sexual diversity and gender variance. Pride, as opposed to shame and social stigma, is the predominant outlook that bolsters most LGBT rights movements throughout the world. C2PLA’s target population is young gay and bisexual men of color, but the work of our coalition typically extends more broadly both into the larger LGBT community and the heterosexual community as well. Often times we accomplish structural change objectives that have such great impact that whole communities are changed. This is something to be very proud of. So as we close out Spring and welcome Summer, let us continue to be proud of the work we do and the lives we impact. Remember you don’t have to be an LGBT person to celebrate Pride month. I encourage you all to get out there and do something in our community to make yourself and the coalition proud. Best, Milton Smith C2PLA Project Director Add Comment So I have to actually start off this post by admitting that I am a huge Chaka Khan fan. The title of this post is actually part of a lyric to her hit song "Through The Fire." April was an okay month, but it had several highs and lows as most months do, but in the first 8 days of May it seems that the coalition and the population we hope to impact change for is experiencing nothing but highs. Yesterday after what felt like a very tumultuous battle, LAUSD renewed their dedication to ensure that Health Education remained a graduation requirement for all students. Several members of our coalition have dedicated countless hours to ensure that this would be the outcome. Then only four hours ago I received news via a co-worker that President Obama has officially come out in support of Same-Sex Marriage. This is very exciting especially considering he is the first sitting President to do so, especially in an election year. In addition to all of the external things happening throughout our coalition, there have also been some great internal things happening. We have added new members, closed a few SCOs, and identified new strategic partners to help us achieve our mission. All in all I would say we are off to a great start. I can't wait to see how the month ends. Oh and don't forget next month June 6th, C2PLA will be presenting at the Los Angeles County Prevention Planning Committee. Warm Regards, Milton Smith C2PLA Project Director As I start this month's blog posting I can't help but hear The Byrd’s song Turn! Turn! Turn! (to Everything There Is a Season) playing loudly in my head. Please note this isn’t just because today’s the first day of Spring, it’s because the lyrics to that song are so potent and relevant the world we live in today. Today every major news outlet is carrying the Trayvon Martin story. Trayvon Martin was a 17-year-old boy whose death has sparked national outrage. Trayvon was shot and killed near a family member's home after he was walking from a convenience store where he had just bought some candy. Trayvon’ s killer, George Zimmerman, admitted to police that he shot Trayvon in the chest. Zimmerman, the community's self-appointed "neighborhood watch leader," called the police to report a suspicious person when he saw Trayvon, a young black man, walking from the store. But Zimmerman still hasn't been charged for the murder. All arguments aside it all boils down to yet another loss of life for a young person of color. Now more than ever people interested in creating structural change need to work together to mobilize the community around issues that continue to put our youth at risk. If we don’t “Spring Forward” now we are doomed to “Fall Back” and by doing so we miss the opportunity to help our youth live longer, healthier lives. In my head I hear the last verse of the song. “To everything - turn, turn, turn, There is a season - turn, turn, turn And a time for every purpose under heaven.” Milton Smith C2PLA Project Director Greetings C2PLA Members and Supporters, I hope this email finds you well despite the fact that Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow today which according to folklore means we are in store for six more weeks of Winter. Although I don’t think this applies to us here in Southern California since we have some of the best weather in the country all year long. I know this is why is many of us choose to live here. As we enter the second month of 2012, I wanted to thank you again for your continued work in helping our coalition achieve its mission of mobilizing the community and creating structural change to reduce HIV/AIDS among young gay and bisexual men of color. Our coalition is so much stronger because of the work you all contribute. We’ve had a very busy year so far. All four of our subcommittees (Schools, Care and Testing, Homeless and Runaway Youth, Sustainability) have met, we’ve submitted our additional paper and pen questions for our Acasi survey, and we’ve been able to analyze the data from our healthy coalition questionnaires that we administered in December. We are very excited to share this information with you at our upcoming working group meeting and even more excited to hear about the work you are doing at your individual agencies. Our first working group meeting of the year is scheduled for Friday February 24, 2012 from 12pm to 3pmat Children’s Hospital Los Angeles’ Division of Adolescent Medicine. We are located at 5000 Sunset Blvd. 4th floor, Los Angeles CA 90027. Please note this is not the main hospital address, this location is inside of the Citibank building. If you are able to attend please RSVP using the following link: http://tinyurl.com/c2pla-meeting no later than 5pm on Wednesday February 22, 2012. This will ensure we have accurate headcount for food. You will find the meeting notes from our last working group meeting which was our December holiday retreat under our Get Involved page. Additionally all past meeting minutes can be found there as well. Lastly, we’ve streamlined communication for community and event announcements with our new Google Groups platform. Here you can submit agency announcements, job openings, relevant published articles, etc. If you haven’t already joined we’ve attached the instruction sheet to this email. To those members who have joined and aren’t able to change or modify their delivery settings please email me so we can look at your settings and make sure you are setup on your desired choice. Google Groups allows members to choose how many emails they receive per day and when. In the past many of you said you received too many emails, this was an agreed upon solution. We hope this new system has been helpful. Reminder February 7th in National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day. If you or your agency is doing anything to observe this day, please forward me the information so I can share with the larger group. I look forward to seeing you all later this month. Warm Regards, Milton Smith Project Director Connect To Protect Los Angeles (C2PLA) Greetings C2PLA Members and Supporters, On behalf of the C2PLA Co-chairs and project staff I wish you a Happy New Year. We hope the holiday season brought you great joy, good health, and a renewed passion for creating structural change. The New Year brings renewed opportunities to grow, develop and improve our community. As 2012 commences, C2PLA prepares for several key changes designed to 1) improve the coalition structures and strategies, and 2) engage more individuals and organizations from different sectors of our community who are committed to reducing HIV/AIDS among young gay and bisexual men of color in Los Angeles. In the coming weeks, our subcommittees will be meeting for the first time in 2012. They will be looking at new ways to achieve their structural change objectives or SCOs. These subcommittee members, along with other members of the larger working group will share their plans and identify their collective goals for a prosperous 2012. On Friday, Feb. 24, the C2PLA Coalition will host its first coalition meeting of 2012. This meeting will be the first with new co-chair Andre Molette at the helm. He will give us an update on the Fair Education Act and share some highlights from Jordan Rustin Coalition’s MLK Voice Summit which C2PLA is supporting. We will also have our first report back from the newly formed Sustainability Subcommittee. Your involvement is vital to C2PLA’s success. If you would like more information on how to get involved, or have general questions about the coalition please contact me at milsmith@chla.usc.edu. May 2012 be a creative, productive, fruitful year. Warm Regards, Milton Smith C2PLA Project Director Greetings C2PLA Member and Supporters, On Friday December 9th we celebrated our 4th annual C2PLA Holiday Retreat. A great time was had by all who attended. In addition to celebrating our 2011 successes we developed our strategic plan for 2012, elected a new co-chair, and created a new subcommittee. This day included great food, great conversation, and an extended opportunity to do some team building. Attached are photos from the retreat. Please take a moment to review the slide show below. The meeting minutes for this retreat can be found by visiting our Get Involved Page and then clicking on the Meeting Minutes tab. Special thanks to this year's planning committee members for making sure the event was a success. The planning members were Andre Molette, Nicole Vick, Deanna Bressler-Montgomery, Kathy Lopez, and our C2PLA co-chairs Heather Bowlan and Heather Northover, affectionately known as The Heathers. Lastly, as we approach the holidays we hope you all have a chance to relax and rejuvenate and spend time with your loved ones, because you have all worked extremely hard in 2011. If our coalition is to continue to be successful it will be because of all you. Happy Holidays, Milton Smith Project Director Connect To Protect Los Angeles (C2PLA) Its been 30 years since the first cases of AIDS were reported in the U.S. HIV is still a reality for more than 1.1 million Americans. Much can be said about the work that members of the C2PLA coalition has done to help reduce the cases of new infections. No matter what is said, its important to remember that like the video below says "HIV Ends With US"!  Greetings C2PLA Members and Supporters, I hope this email finds you all well and rested after receiving an extra hour of sleep on Sunday. Hopefully you’ve also had a chance to turn all your clocks back an hour, and if not being an hour early is always better than being an hour late. Speaking of time, on behalf of the 2011 C2PLA Retreat Planning Committee I would like to take this time to personally invite you to our 2011 holiday retreat. This is our fourth annual holiday retreat and our first with a theme. Join us as we “Look Forward to Our Legacy” on Friday December 9, 2011. To RSVP please visit www.tinyurl.com/c2pla-2011holidayretreat The planning committee is working very hard to ensure you have a day full of fun, laughter, and team building as we work on our strategic plan for 2012. We also use this day to celebrate the successes of both the coalition and the individuals who contribute so much of their time and effort to keep our work sustainable. So whether you’ve been to one meeting this year, or all 36, we’d love to see you at the retreat. New this year is our Key Actor Awards, for the first time in our coalition history members will decide on which individuals will be awarded one of 10 individual awards highlighting their contribution to the coalition. If you haven’t voted yet please do so by visiting http://tinyurl.com/c2pla-keyactorawardnominations before November 25th. Lastly, at our October meeting we decided as a coalition to sponsor 11 youth whose lives have been impacted by HIV. On the retreat confirmation page you will be given the option to choose one of these 11 youth to sponsor with a gift. Please feel free to bring your wrapped or unwrapped gift with you to the retreat. If you aren’t able to attend the retreat but would still like to give a gift to one of these young people, please send me a message indicating this and I will make arrangements to pick up the gift from you before the 9th. I look forward to seeing you all on December 9th. Warm Regards, Milton Smith Project Director Connect To Protect Los Angeles (C2PLA) www.c2p.la Greetings C2PLA Members and Supporters, Welcome to our newly redesigned website! Knowing that you depend on our site to learn about the new and ever changing happenings of the C2PLA Coalition, we’ve rebuilt our site to make it much easier to find and share information. As we approach the 11th year of the project, we continue to be inspired by the passion and dedication we see in our community partners, stakeholders, policymakers, funders and advocates, all working on behalf of youth in our target population. As part of our commitment to keeping our work easily accessible, we have created a more navigable website with additional resources, better tools, and a new visual design to support the coalition’s work. Stay tuned in the coming months for new resources to appear in each of the links of our page. We are also slowly rolling out our Google email function which will allow you to receive updates from us in a more timely and organized fashion. This new function will also allow you to share information with members of our network as well as help you keep up to date on the latest information going on in our community. With our completely redesigned site, you are now able to find everything C2PLA related all in one place. This includes our Calendar section which includes both meeting dates and locations for our various working group and subcommittee meetings, a Milestones section where you can see some of our completed structural change objectives, and much, much, more. Reflecting our long-standing commitment to collaboration and continuous improvement, we welcome your feedback as we continue to improve this site. Sincerely, Milton Smith Project Director Connect To Protect Los Angeles (C2PLA) |
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