ACRIA Works For Youth HIV Prevention With Love Heals

ACRIA, a New York-based international AIDS research and education organization, and an authority on issues related to older adults and HIV, announced an expansion of its work to include youth by acquiring Love Heals, the Alison Gertz Foundation for AIDS Education, a highly successful organization that is the leading provider of HIV/AIDS education to young people in New York City.
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"We are excited to integrate Love Heals' much needed and highly successful work into our own," said ACRIA Executive Director Benjamin Bashein. "Love Heals' commitment to young people mirrors ours to older populations living with HIV, and this synergy will allow us both to grow and thrive," continued Bashein.�"As AIDS organizations face an exciting new era working to reduce HIV infections with better outreach tools and advances in HIV prevention, treatment, and care, ACRIA's joining forces with Love Heals allows us to fill gaps in HIV prevention strategies and provide a greater compliment of programs and services to people of all ages with life-saving HIV prevention and health education."
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Through research, education and advocacy, ACRIA improves lives and transforms communities to achieve a world without HIV. ACRIA envisions a world where all people with HIV receive the treatment, care, and support they need to lead healthy, productive lives and where new transmissions of the virus have been eliminated. Since 1991, ACRIA's Robert Mapplethorpe Clinical Trials Program has contributed to the development of nearly 20 FDA-approved medications, helping millions of people live longer and healthier lives.

Today, ACRIA also studies the needs of people living with or at risk for HIV through its Applied and Translational Research Program, and offers critical HIV-related training, technical assistance (TA) and capacity building assistance (CBA) to health and human services professionals, as well as education to those with and at risk for HIV, STIs and hepatitis, through its Training Center.

"We at Love Heals are delighted. Our acquisition by ACRIA allows Love Heals to achieve its goal of educating as many young people as possible until HIV and AIDS are eradicated," said Dini von Mueffling, one of Love Heals' co-founders. "ACRIA's research-based programs and infrastructure will help us strengthen our work and reach. I know that my late friend, Ali Gertz, would be thrilled by this new opportunity for Love Heals, that broadens her legacy of ensuring that young people have the information they need to protect themselves."

Love Heals, the Alison Gertz Foundation for AIDS Education was founded in 1992 as a legacy and labor of love by Stefani Greenfield, Victoria Leacock Hoffman and Dini von Mueffling in memory of their friend Alison Gertz, who died of AIDS in 1992. Alison was infected with HIV through a single sexual encounter when she was 16 and soon after made her story public in an effort to help others. She quickly became an internationally recognized spokesperson for HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention. Ali devoted her final years to providing young people with the information they needed to protect themselves from contracting HIV.

Love Heals' mission is to eliminate new HIV infections through education in communities vulnerable to HIV transmission. Through its diverse programming, the organization has reached more than 700,000 young people throughout the five boroughs, Long Island and Westchester County.