AIDS Healthcare Foundation

The AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) is a non profit, Los Angeles-based global organization that provides AIDS treatment and advocacy to over 70,000 people in 22 countries. Their official founding pledge is to "provide cutting-edge medicine and advocacy, regardless of ability to pay." It is the world's Fact|date=September 2008 largest specialized provider of HIV/AIDs medication and treatment.

AHF’s operating capital comes from its own self-created social enterprises. AHF Pharmacies, thrift stores (Out of the Closet in the U.S.), health care contracts and other strategic partnerships generate funding that helps AHF provide medical and advocacy services to the thousands of people it serves.

Generating and defining new, innovative ways to treatment, prevention and advocacy is the hallmark of AHF’s success. It is currently embarked on a mass testing initiative to identify and treat the 25 million people who don’t know they are infected. It will take 1 billion tests annually, and AHF is advocating mass testing models in hopes of eliminating older, more time consuming methods.

Since 1987, AHF has cared for thousands of people living with HIV/AIDS worldwide. As AHF creates and implements its programs in new communities in the U.S. and abroad, it expands its delivery of healthcare and influence over policy with the sole aim of saving more lives.

Out of the Closet, a chain of thrift stores in Northern and Southern California, is owned and operated by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. Out of the Closet Thrift Stores generate income that helps fund the medical services AHF provides. In addition to regular retail operations, three locations also offer free HIV testing (and free condoms) and counseling in a private area of the store. Out of the Closet thrift Stores generate 30,000 donations and nearly 1 million shoppers a year.

The stated mission of AIDS Healthcare Foundation is to "provide cutting-edge medicine and advocacy regardless of ability to pay". The foundation aims to reach 30 countries and save 100,000 lives. Some see it as an impossible goal. We see it as a necessary one. AHF pledges to fight this disease no matter whom it afflicts, or where it is found. We will not rest until AIDS is eradicated from the globe.

In 2005, AHF donated bicycles to the people in Uganda through it's Donate-a-Bicyle program. The measure seeks to solve the transportation challenge Ugandans face everyday in keeping doctor visits to their local AHF healthcare center.

From its first days as a hospice to helping thousands around the world through lifesaving anti-retroviral therapy, AHF is leaving a legacy of life.

With patients literally dying on the streets of Los Angeles, AIDS Hospice Foundation was founded in 1987 by a small group of grassroots activists who committed themselves to "fight for the living and care for the dying."

At the time, average life expectancy for patients at AHF was just 13 months. By 1990, reflecting the growing need for ongoing medical care, AIDS Hospice Foundation officially changed its name to AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF).

Today, AHF is the nation’s largest AIDS organization. For nineteen years, AHF has cared for more than 50,000 people with HIV and AIDS and provided over 12,000 HIV tests in 2005 alone. With a staff of over 800, AHF helps people with HIV live longer, healthier lives.

External links

* [http://www.aidshealth.org/ AIDShealth.org Official website]