WDET News
- Detroit Ministers Push for AIDS Funding
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Dec 14, 2009Metro Desk
A national movement to battle HIV-AIDS in the black community is taking shape in Detroit.
The Black Leadership Commission on AIDS of Detroit is pushing for approval of national legislation to improve funding for outreach against AIDS.
The Reverend Horace Sheffield the Third is organizing the local effort. He says the $20 billion legislation would target key areas.
“Churches, community organizations, CBOs that basically have an African American population, prevention and treatment. The treatment part of it is to abate the agony of people who already have the disease. But the more important part of this is to certainly get the word out, help people understand how not to spread it and to safeguard themselves.”
Sheffield says HIV-AIDS is a plague in the community since blacks make up about 60% of Michigan’s HIV-AIDS cases.