Ms. Foundation for Women - Voices From the Field: Naina Khanna, 2009 Ms. Foundation Women of Vision Awardee

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Voices From the Field: Naina Khanna, 2009 Ms. Foundation Women of Vision Awardee

2009 Ms. Foundation Women of Vision Awardee Naina Khanna, Director of Policy and Community Organizing at Women Organized to Respond to Life-Threatening Disease (WORLD), supports, educates and mobilizes women living with and affected by HIV/AIDS encouraging them to advocate for policy change that meets their unique and, often, unmet needs. Khanna recently co-founded the U.S. Positive Womens Network and is the youngest leadership team member of the Ms. Foundation's National Women and AIDS Collective (NWAC). Her work results in better prevention, treatment and care programs for women and their families across the U.S.

2009 Woman of Vision Award

Naina Khanna - National Advocacy Coordinator, WORLD/U.S. Positive Women’s Network – NWAC Grantee /Leadership Team Member

Nearly a decade ago, Naina Khanna, a politically savvy woman in her early 20s, did what many would consider a responsible thing: she asked to be tested for HIV. To her surprise, she was turned down twice. “I obviously didn’t fit the profile of someone who was considered ‘at risk’,” Naina recalls.

What she didn’t know then and has since learned exceptionally well is that HIV testing, treatment and care has long been informed by the misperception that women get HIV so rarely that men, especially men who have sex with men or are injection drug users, should take precedence. Meanwhile, HIV/AIDS among women in the U.S. has tripled since the mid-1980s.

In 2002, Naina tested HIV positive upon an unrelated doctor’s visit, and realized she had been positive for a few years. When Naina sought treatment, she continued to confront a lack of understanding about women and HIV. “A male ‘treatment advocate’ showed me an HIV molecule and a big medication chart. It didn’t make any sense to me. I said, ‘what happens if I want to have a baby?’ He couldn’t answer any of my questions.”

As time passed, Naina continued to feel like each of the systems intended to support people with or at risk of HIV failed to meet her needs. “I was never referred to a support group,” she recalls. “I was never told about any organizations specifically for women.”

It took searching online under “women” and “HIV” to find Women Organized to Respond to Life-Threatening Disease, or WORLD. Naina was impressed by the women-specific, peer-based services they offered and particularly moved by a story they featured about an HIV positive woman who had hiked the Appalachian Trail: “I was like, ‘Wow! Women can do that! That’s so cool, even with HIV!’”

Soon after, she moved to Oakland, CA, where WORLD is based, and became one of its clients: “I was paired with a wonderful peer advocate who helped me accept my diagnosis and get into consistent care.” Naina also began looking for work. She had co-founded the League of Young Voters during the 2004 elections, and wanted to apply her community organizing and campaign experience to the HIV/AIDS arena, where she had a personal stake.

Naina was offered a job at an HIV organization in San Francisco. Two months into it, she couldn’t believe her eyes.

“I was at a 25-year commemorative event for HIV with the mayor and community advocates. At one point they called on people with HIV to come up on stage. I was really not out about my status at this point. But as people started to go up, it was just man after man after man. There were about 200 men on stage and not one woman. I thought, ‘Oh, there can’t not be a woman.’ And then, ‘I must be the only one...’”

Naina summoned her courage and rose to join the men. “I just felt like women had to be represented on that stage.”

Ever since, Naina has been determined to make sure that other women with HIV are represented on stages across the U.S.—specifically, at local, state and national decision-making tables. As director of policy and community organizing at WORLD, whose staff she joined in 2006, and as co-founder and coordinator of the newly formed U.S. Positive Women’s Network, Naina works to build the collective power of HIV positive women to advocate for policies and programs that meet women’s needs. As the youngest leadership team member of the National Women and AIDS Collective, formed by Ms. Foundation grantees in 2005, Naina plays a key role in bringing the expertise of grassroots women’s organizations to bear on federal HIV policy to promote, in her words, “a holistic approach to HIV prevention and care that takes into account the realities of women’s lives” and will help end the epidemic.

Naina credits the Ms. Foundation for its long-standing commitment to supporting advocacy led by and for HIV positive women. “This work wouldn’t be possible without the Ms. Foundation’s Women and AIDS Fund. We are mostly small, direct-service organizations, and it makes a huge difference to be given resources to dedicate to policy and advocacy. With support from Ms., we can leverage our power and address the deeper structural issues instead of just putting a Band-Aid on the problem all the time.”

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In 2005, the Ms. Foundation helped nurture the formation of the National Women and AIDS Collective (NWAC), the first and only national policy network of organizations led by women living with and affected by HIV/AIDS. In just a few short years, NWAC, led by Ms. Foundation grantees, has become a key voice in the women and AIDS movement and a respected leader among policymakers, public health officials and advocacy organizations alike. Today, NWAC is advancing transformative solutions at the White House and beyond. Read more

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