It’s been five years since we announced the first class of talented advocates in the AVAC Advocacy Fellowship Program—and in February, AVAC was thrilled to welcome seven new Fellows. These individuals joined the outgoing 2013 Fellows in Harare, Zimbabwe, for a joint wrap-up and orientation Fellows Workshop.

This meeting, held in tandem with the annual AVAC Partners’ Forum, provided updates on issues across the field of HIV prevention and opportunities for capacity building.

The 2014 Fellows plan to tackle a range of issues, including male circumcision implementation in South Africa, women’s prevention research advocacy in Kenya and PrEP introduction in Uganda. For more detail and for the full list of planned Fellowship projects click here. At the Workshop, incoming Fellows heard feedback from peers, alumni Fellows and other colleagues—including advice such as the importance of coalition-building and collaborating, being persistent with government officials and developing talking points for conversations with journalists.

The Fellows Workshop was also a venue for 2013 Fellows to reflect on their accomplishments over the past 12 months, strategize to cement their gains individually and as a group and continue to impact the HIV/AIDS epidemics in their countries and regions. The 2013 Fellows were presented with awards at a reception to celebrate their accomplishments this past year. Videos of each Fellow summarizing his or her project are available on our YouTube page.

Purpose: To support highly innovative research projects that address a biomedical or behavioral issue relevant to HIV and drug abuse and/or lead to new avenues of research or new interventions for prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS among substance abusers. Open to  individual researchers and research teams; not limited to any one area of research on HIV and substance use. http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-DA-15-005.html