Berlin – On its 40th birthday, the association celebrates its diversity and successes and points out the endangered financing of AIDS relief work.
The German Aid Aid organization is celebrating its 40th birthday today in Berlin. The evening’s motto is: “40 years of German Aids Aid. More than you think.” This honors the diversity of AIDS relief work that has been developed over the last four decades.
DAH board member Ulf Kristal says:
“What began as an emergency measure of self-help and political self-defense during the AIDS crisis is now a strong movement and a diverse professional association. Aidshilfe is an important pillar in the German prevention landscape and campaigns against discrimination and for human rights. The core competency of reaching specific groups with health issues now benefits marginalized people and society as a whole in many ways. At the same time, funding is continuing to collapse in many places – this endangers the success of German prevention with regard to HIV and AIDS, other sexually transmitted infections and hepatitis.
In particular, regional and local AIDS service organizations and other institutions in the HIV sector are having to contend with massive cuts, while they are increasingly in demand due to current crises such as the war in Ukraine or, most recently, Mpox (“monkeypox”) and increasingly complex prevention work . At the federal level, too, funding has actually declined in recent years.
Preserve prevention successes
“The fact that the number of HIV infections in Germany is low and has been declining for several years is thanks to the successful model of division of labor and specific prevention for the particularly affected groups, which has arisen from self-help,” emphasizes DAH board member Ulf Kristal. “But success can only be maintained if we continue to do what is successful and don’t let up.”
40 years after its founding on September 23, 1983, Deutsche Aidshilfe is an umbrella organization with 115 member organizations from various areas. Since 1985, it has been running prevention at the federal level with state funding for the particularly badly affected and threatened groups (especially gay and bisexual men, people who inject drugs, people in prison, migrants from countries with high HIV prevalence and sex workers). also trans and non-binary people). She also represents the interests of people with HIV and campaigns against stigmatization.
“AIDS relief has always gone far beyond the topic of HIV and AIDS. Focal points include, for example, sexual education, patient rights and a discrimination-free society. The commitment to civil rights in every respect is part of the DNA of the AIDS relief movement,” says DAH board member Ulf Kristal.
Celebration with State Secretary Sabine Dittmar and drag queen Barbie Breakout
At the celebration in the home port in Neukölln, alongside the founders Stefan Reiß, Rainer Schilling and Bruno Gmünder, the Parliamentary State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Health, Sabine Dittmar, is expected. The evening will be moderated by one of the few openly HIV-positive celebrities in the world, the drag queen Barbie Breakout (“Drag Race Germany”) and DAH press spokesman Holger Wicht.
More information about the anniversary and its theme
More information about today’s reception
Press registration for the reception: [email protected]