Southern AIDS Coalition

Dafina Ward currently serves as Interim Executive Director of the Southern AIDS Coalition. For more than a decade, she has led efforts to develop community-based health programs serving groups facing the greatest health disparities, including Black women and LGBTQ youth. Most of her work has focused on the intersection of HIV and other key systems of care. Her work at SAC includes guiding the organization’s grantmaking processes and supporting grantee partners through linkage to technical assistance and other developmental opportunities. Prior to joining SAC, she led prevention efforts for AIDS Alabama (Birmingham, AL) and served as Director of External Relations for Provide, a national organization committed to improving access to reproductive health services for women in low resource communities. She is also a writer and a 2017 Ford Foundation/Op-Ed Project Public Voices Fellow, with work published in The Washington Post, The Lily and Role Reboot. Dafina was a founding member of the Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham LGBTQ Fund and was the first southern board member of the Urban Coalition for HIV/AIDS Prevention Services (UCHAPS). She received her BA from Clark Atlanta University (Atlanta, GA) and her Juris Doctor from Temple University’s Beasley School of Law (Philadelphia, PA).

Marvin Anderson is an empowerment advocate and author living and thriving with HIV. Marvin’s platform as an empowerment advocate is to empower individuals to live purposeful and authentic lives. Marvin attended Los Angeles Valley College where he studied communications and has worked in various media capacities including radio and television broadcasting and print media. Marvin serves as Communications Manager at The Southern AIDS Coalition, a non-partisan coalition working to end the HIV epidemic in the South. He is also the founder of The Empowerment Leader Inc. and The Stigmocracy Organization. The Empowerment Leader Inc. is a lifestyle empowerment brand that specializes in personal and professional development maximization, through the scope of individualized, organizational and corporate empowerment coaching and speaking. The Stigmocracy Organization is the passion born organization that encompasses Marvin’s heart of advocacy as an HIV positive advocate to destigmatize families, communities, cities, states and universally.

Mardrequs Harris is the Senior Manager of Capacity Building for the Southern AIDS Coalition. He is a Tennessee native and graduate of Tennessee State University in Nashville, TN. Being born and raised in TN, Mardrequs’ heart and passion for the work is driven by seeing improved health outcomes among people living with and affected by HIV in the South. He has had the privilege to work on the local, state, and national levels in this sect of public health over the past seven years. He has served in some of the following roles, Clinical Research Interviewer and Retention Specialist for Emory University’s School of Medicine in Atlanta, GA for the HVTN 505 study, Outreach Coordinator for the Haven Memphis, a drop-in center and entity of Friends for Life Corp, PrEP Director for the Tennessee Department of Health and Senior Program Analyst on the HIV, STI, and Viral Hepatitis team at the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) in Washington, DC. Mardrequs serves on several regional and national committees, including but not limited to the CBA National Advisory Committee for API Wellness (San Francisco, CA) and the Southern HIV/AIDS Strategy Initiative (SASI).

As a woman living with HIV and working in this field, it is a pleasure to be a part of the Southern AIDS Coalition team addressing Stigma. If we really want to ensure people living with HIV are healthy, we have to help them overcome Stigma. Stigma reduction is a way to also prevent new HIV diagnoses. The COMPASS Initiative is important because the South is a unique geographical area with unique needs.

The Center for Health Policy and Inequalities Research (CHPIR) at Duke University has over 20 years of experience working with both governmental and foundation grants with a mission to improve the health of individuals and communities, locally, nationally, and internationally. Faculty and staff strive to promote health and address health inequalities through interdisciplinary policy-relevant research, interventions, and evaluations. CHIPR research focuses on Population-Based Health Research, Health Systems Research, and Health Intervention and Evaluation Research. This research has influenced and shaped health policy nationally and across the globe. Areas of concentration for CHPIR research and demonstration projects include HIV prevention and care, sexual and gender minority health, and improving systems of behavioral health care. CHPIR researchers have been involved in HIV-related research in the US Deep South for over 20 years; most recently focusing on improving behavioral health and documenting and reducing HIV-related stigma through federally and foundation-funded projects including facilitating evaluation for the Southern AIDS Coalition’s Gilead COMPASS funded HIV-stigma programming.