HIV Prevention Program

In the battle against HIV/AIDS, education is one of the most powerful weapons.  The Change Happens! HIV Prevention Program provides communities with multiple levels of intervention and education.

Facts and figures supporting the trend of increasing HIV infection rates among African-Americans are commonplace in today’s information age.  Nonetheless, sound information on HIV/AIDS and its havoc still manages to dodge those needing it most.  For this uninformed population, HIV continues its distressing impact.  More than half—55%—of new HIV cases reported in Harris County for 2007 occurred among African-Americans.  Moreover, of all new cases of HIV infection reported for females during that same year, 72% were among African-American females.

Because we feel that effective community organizations evolve to address rising crises, Change Happens! has committed to strengthening its SESA program, a HIV program tailored for serving African-American females.  Project SESA (Sisters Empowered, Sisters Aware) uses four public health strategies to provide HIV counseling, testing, and referral to high-risk African American women. The project assesses the effectiveness of each strategy in engaging African American women to learn their HIV status.