Speaker 2: Thank you. We are moving on to our last proclamation, proclamation 158. I am not reading that one. Councilman Lopez, will you please read proclamation 158?
Speaker 7: Thank you, Mr. President. Will do proclamation number 158 series of 2016 in support of National Native HIV AIDS Awareness Day and National Women and Girls HIV AIDS Awareness Day. Excuse me. WHEREAS, approximately 1.1 million Americans are living with HIV and more than 50,000 become infected with HIV every year. 26% are between the ages of 13 and 24. Female youth accounted for nearly 2000 of all youth living with HIV. And. Whereas, according to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment at the end of 2014, more than 12,900 people were reported to be living with HIV in the state of Colorado. And. Whereas, HIV and AIDS has affected the city and county of Denver more than any other area in the state of Colorado reporting the most persons living with the disease, most HIV or AIDS related deaths, and 40% of new HIV infections in 2014. And. WHEREAS, the continued spread of HIV in the American Indian and Alaska Native communities poses a significant risk to the public health and well-being of these communities. They are the third highest rate of new HIV infections in 2014. Whereas when compared to other ethnic groups, American Indians and Alaska Natives are ranked fifth in estimated rates of HIV diagnosis and have poor survival rates after HIV diagnosis. HIV infection was the ninth leading cause of death among American Indian and Alaska Native youth, aged 25 to 34 in 2010. And. WHEREAS, approximately one in four people living with HIV in the U.S. are women, cases disproportionately affect African-American and Latino women, who represent 28% of all women in the U.S., but account for 80% of HIV cases among women. And. Whereas, the city and county of Denver recognizes to continue to work to bring HIV and AIDS awareness by groups such as to Cultura. Children's Hospital Immunodeficiency Program. Sisters of Color United for Education. Colorado Organization for Latino Opportunity and Reproductive Rights. Denver Indian Center. Denver. Indian and Family. Denver. Indian Health and Family Services. Lakota Way. Healing Center. Sister Nations. Color Guard. Branching Seeds of Resistance. University of Denver. Graduate School of Social Work and Servicios de la Raza. Now, therefore, be it proclaimed by the Council of the City and County of Denver, Section one, that the Denver City Council proclaims March 10th, 2016, to be known as National Women's, National Women and Girls HIV AIDS Awareness Day. And March 20th. 2016 as National Native HIV AIDS Awareness Day. Section two that the clerk of the city and county of Denver shall attest and affixed the seal of the city and county of Denver to this proclamation, and that copies be transmitted to Café Cultura and Servicios de la Raza.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Councilman Lopez. Your motion to adopt.
Speaker 7: Thank you, Mr. President. I move that council proclamation 158 series of 2016 be adopted.
Speaker 2: It has been moved and seconded. Comments. Councilman Lopez.
Speaker 7: Thank you, Mr. President. It's been a an honor and a tradition to bring this proclamation to the council chambers, because this issue in this proclamation represents an issue that affects every single human being, every single country in this world. But especially in this country. Latinos, African-Americans and and Native women. You know, I think we've made a lot of progress. In terms of what we can do to build awareness. To have access to education. To proper health care. Access to reproductive health. But also. I think it's. Access to areas where we are definitely underserved. And we definitely have challenges. You know, I. I know we made a lot of progress. But we have a lot of work to do. These are mothers. These are sisters and daughters. And these are. Folks who need our help. And we have. And I believe I. Without getting in too much of the politics and the nitty gritty. I think we have the resources and access and power in this lifetime to bring this disease to a to an end. We absolutely do. And we put the kind of resources we put into national security. And called this a national security risk. This would be cure. We shouldn't have to have bake sales or small fundraisers for an epidemic like this. And it's these kinds of proclamations and these kinds of efforts that help remind that to folks who are blessed to have access to health care and education and reproductive services. It's a blessing, but there's a lot of folks that don't. And so this proclamation is dedicated to those efforts. It recognizes and honors those efforts. And I just have to say thank you to all you todos. Thank you to all you caseworkers. Thank you to all you folks that are inside the households of our neighborhoods, making sure people understand this issue and how to prevent it. It's absolutely preventable. So without further ado, Mr. President, I wholeheartedly support this proclamation in the spirit of this proclamation, asking my colleagues to do the same. Thank you.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Councilman Lopez. Councilwoman Ortega.
Speaker 9: Thank you, Mr. President. I just it's hard to repeat all of what Councilman Lopez has said, because he pretty much took, you know, the words that I would want to share. I think the most important thing is the work is not done yet. There's still a lot more to do in this arena. And I am grateful for all the service providers we have in the Denver community that work with people in Denver who are dealing with this situation. I serve on the board of a nonprofit that provides housing for people with AIDS. And, you know, HUD got to a point where they created a separate designation for funding called funding because the need was so great. But I look forward to a day when we don't have to have this proclamation and we have found a cure and we don't have to have people dealing with this disease. So thank you, Mr. President.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Councilwoman Ortega and Councilman Lopez. Rebecca.
Speaker 7: I keep forgetting main points. You know, in recognizing that it affects that this is disproportionately affecting women and the fact that we need to have to increase access and education. Let me make sure that the word is out there and it gets out that you men have to also take responsibility as well, too. You young boys got to protect yourself as well, to his credit. You contract it, you spread it. This isn't this. This disease does not discriminate. It doesn't discriminate based on sexuality, gender, race, anything. And the young men and men also we also have this responsibility as well to it's on our shoulders. And I wanted to make that point as well, too. Thank you.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Councilman Lopez. Any other comments? One, five, eight. Scene nine. Madam Secretary.
Speaker 6: Rocko Lopez. I am new Ortega Sussman Black. Hi, Clark. Hi, Espinosa. I. Flynn.
Speaker 3: I.
Speaker 6: Gilmore. I can eat. Mr. President, I.
Speaker 2: Councilman Espinosa.
Speaker 4: Oh, sorry.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry. Thank you. Madam Secretary. Please close the voting now. The results. 1212 eyes one five has been adopted. Councilman Lopez, there's someone you like to invite to the podium.
Speaker 7: Yeah, there is a there's a couple of people. One of them, Jaylene Salazar, who is with service services, La Raza and anybody else who if I didn't realize I supposed to call it, make sure they come up. And. Ah, yeah, that's right. I was going to call on him. I was going to pick on him. Ira Cruz, who is with Garfinkle Dura, who is a constituent of mine and also a. College colleague of mine to. And Gillian, you're a college colleague of mine. That's right. A colleague of mine to. Awesome.
Speaker 3: Cool.
Speaker 4: So first of all, thank you to city council and especially to Councilmember Lopez for continuing to support this this effort. Right. I think it's been three years. Four years. We've done a proclamation for four years. Yeah. And I wanted to recognize some other organizations who are who are here as well. We have a Lakota Way Healing Center as well. Representative, somebody from from that organization would like to to come up and join us. We appreciate that. And there are so many other organizations that were involved in putting this proclamation together, as well as just to organize the Rise Up event. It's our seventh annual Rise Up event that we've organized for the last four years. We've been at the Denver Indian Center, and it's definitely been a great opportunity for people, the community, to come together and learn about how to protect themselves, how to how to be able to kind of look at it holistically as well and be able to support one another in our efforts. And with with the rise up event, we've hosted free HIV testing provided usually by Servicios BI Sisters of Color, United for Education, as well as the Children's Hospital Immunization Immunodeficiency Program, Chip. And, and luckily we have haven't had very many positive tests come back. I remember a couple of years ago we had a young man from Longmont, 18 years old, who found out he was positive and wouldn't have otherwise known if he hadn't come to the event. And so I would echo the sentiments of Congress, Councilwoman Ortega not having to have these kind of proclamations and events. But in the meantime, we continuously have to do that. So with that, I'll go ahead and hand it over to Jaylene and Cindy if they would like to offer some comments. Thank you.
Speaker 5: Good evening, everyone. Angelina Salazar and I work with services at La Raza, our HIV program, where we day on a daily basis work with men, women and youth who are living with HIV. So I wanted to thank, on behalf of our positive community in Denver, thank each and every one of you for recognizing the importance of this issue. As you both have said, you know, we've come a long way. We have a long way to go. It starts with you all as our leaders. It starts with you all as our community. And so we're in this fight together because it is the future of our generations. It's pretty alarming to see the rates of which youth 13 to 25 are being diagnosed with HIV. Women, youth, people of color. I mean, it's it's scary. And so we need to take our own efforts in really protecting ourselves and others, as well as doing our best to educate our community to minimize the stigma of HIV. That's a huge piece. I think if we were to do that, we'd be able to understand one another, be a little bit more compassionate, and really be able to to minimize the risk and incidence of HIV across all of our communities and across the globe. So I thank each and every one of you. We'd love to invite you on this Friday to come to our Rise Up event at the Denver Indian Center. 6 p.m. There's free food again, free testing. We'll be doing free HIV, chlamydia and gonorrhea testing as well. We want to keep our community safe. Please. So come and join us now to share some spoken word with you. Even educate each and every one of you. Teach you something about HIV that maybe you didn't know before and can spread the message on to a niece, nephew, child, even your own parents. So we're not too young. We're not too old to learn about this epidemic. And let's make a change for the better together. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening. My name's Cindy Rice. I represent the Lakota Way Healing Center. We are located out of a church, the Four Winds.
Speaker 9: Church on Fifth and Bannock. My voice kind of sounds a little harsh. Approximately. There are over 506 federally recognized tribes. And of those.
Speaker 5: Tribes, a lot of the Native Americans.
Speaker 9: Come from the reservation and they, they migrate here. Um, we come from the social, economic standpoint because we deal with people that are drug addicted, whether that's intravenous drugs or they suffer from alcoholism, homelessness, the whole factors that perpetuate this problem. And from our standpoint, we recognize that on the reservations prior to them coming here, the reservations are so distant from the cities or health care in general. Some of the youth and some of the people affected with HIV and AIDS, they don't they don't get the help that they need. Sometimes the nearest health facility is over an hour away on the remote areas of the reservation. So yeah, education.
Speaker 5: Is part of it, but part of it.
Speaker 9: Is access to the facilities. Again, we get some of these people here from the reservations and when they come here, their problem is adjusting to a city environment. And so.
Speaker 5: With that.
Speaker 9: Statue, statistically 1.7. A million Native Americans nationwide are infected with HIV and AIDS. And so we do what we can to promote it like our I had said earlier on a holistic standpoint. So we support HIV and AIDS National Recognition Day. And we thank all of you, chairwoman and chairman, for recognizing this proclamation. Thank you.
Speaker 8: Thank you. Thank you.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Thank you, Councilman Lopez, for always bringing this forward. We are moving on to the resolutions. Madam Secretary, will you please read the resolutions.
A proclamation in support of National Native HIV/AIDS Awareness Day and National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day.