1. Global Diseases By:Itzel Camacho, Ivette Bautista, & Araceli Tellez

2. Diseases and humans Diseases have always been highly destructive. Humans exchanged diseases back & forth New diseases killed most of the pop. it encountered

3. HIV & AIDS The most serious epidemic of 20th cent. Spread mainly through sexual intercourse. Discovered in 1981

4. AIDS/ HIV in sub-Saharan Africa Highest HIV rates in the world. 80% of children are infected. Epidemic has orphaned about ten million children.

5. Impact on the World By 2003, 37.8 million people infected. AIDS devaste families and countries. No vaccine or cure developed for HIV.

6. The Loss of a Warrior Ten years ago, while working for the Los Angeles County Health Department, I was given the opportunity to form a support group for African American women living with HIV/AIDS. The very first woman to come to this group was Lynn Chamberlain. When I first met Lynn, I noticed not only how beautiful she was, but also how young she was. Lynn was twenty-five years old and diagnosed HIV positive when she was only twenty-one. As she sat in the brightly lit room for our first support group, Lynn told her personal story. Five years earlier, Lynn was a student at Tuskegee University in Alabama. Home in Inglewood, CA, for the summer, and working in a local restaurant, Lynn met a man she could only describe as “fine”. He was 6'4” and 210 pounds with a dark complexion, trimmed beard and a smile that could light up even the darkest day. They introduced themselves, exchanged phone numbers and started dating. Nine months later back in school, Lynn started feeling sick. She called her mom who told her to come home. Upon her return, Lynn 's doctor told her she had HIV. Devastated, Lynn called her boyfriend to tell him he should be tested and when his results were also positive, Lynn was sick with guilt thinking she had infected him. During another doctor visit it was brought to Lynn 's attention that her partner seemed to have been infected longer than she had. Puzzled, Lynn went to see her boyfriend and he confessed to her that he was bisexual and was first diagnosed as HIV+ two years before they met. In a state of shock she left his apartment and went back home, never to see him again. For the next three years Lynn waited to die. It was then Lynn met Ann Copeland, another HIV positive woman and co-founder of a community based HIV organization called Women At Risk. She talked to Lynn, giving her the strength and hope she needed to get up and get on with the work of living with HIV and not dying from AIDS. Lynn started going to community forums, schools and churches, anywhere her voice could be heard, telling her story. “African American women account for seventy-two percent of all new HIV cases in America ”, was a startling statistic Lynn was intimately aware of which motivated her to speak out at every opportunity. Lynn and her mother worked long and hard to educate and help people with HIV/AIDS. Her mother, Marilyn, opened a home for people living with HIV/AIDS called Marilyn's House and in 1997, won an Essence Award for her work proudly dedicating it to her daughter Lynn. Sadly, her mother succumbed to ovarian cancer four years ago. On December 20, 2004 Lynn Chamberlain lost her valiant fight against this disease. She passed from this world peacefully, surrounded by those who loved her. Lynn was an only child, however, Lynn did have sisters. The women in her support group and in the HIV community were her sisters. We knew and loved Lynn for ten beautiful years. We laughed with her, cried with her and were there with her as her journey in this life came to an end. We are still grieving for Lynn and we miss her tremendously. She represented women who have HIV with style and class. Lynn was a wonderful friend to all of us. I never realized that by starting a support group ten years ago I would be blessed, not only in knowing Lynn Chamberlain, but also in meeting so many women who are fighting every day with dignity and courage to live and indeed to thrive in spite of this horrific disease. Sandra Rogers Support Group Facilitator Women At Risk 2005