About me: "Our mission is to preserve the AIDS monument as an inspirational tool to educate the community about cultural denial, HIV/AIDS and to promote activism and healthy living".
Founded in 1993, The Wall Las Memorias Project is a non-profit HIV/AIDS organization located in northeast Los Angeles.
Over the past thirteen years, the campaign for the AIDS Monument, Las Memorias, has become a movement for awareness and education. In order to gather support of the community, The Wall Las Memorias Project developed innovating HIV/AIDS education and awareness programs serving all segments of the community. Funded by the County of Los Angeles, California Endowment and City of Los Angeles, the agency provides HIV/AIDS education and prevention services to Latino Men (Latino Men’s Group) and
communities of Faith (Project Faith).
We are proud of what our community has accomplished in building and maintaining this Monument but we need our community’s corporations and organizations to help us sustain this all-important Monument for future generations.
HIV Prevention Programs
Project Faith
The project assists churches in developing HIV/AIDS ministries and conducts trainings to clergy and faith
institution members.
Members of the evangelical, Catholic, Episcopal, Methodist and Presbyterian churches participate in the Los Angeles County HIV Faith Based Community Advisory Board.
Project Faith also provides HIV education/prevention to the Latino Faith Based institutions of Los Angeles County.
Latino Men’s Group
The Latino Men’s Group is an HIV prevention program that targets the highest at risk population in Los Angeles County. The organization conducts outreach and hosts men¹s discussion groups with topics that are culturally sensitive and appropriate. It hosts HIV testing and
referrals.
The philosophy of the organization is that HIV education and testing is not the answer to the epidemic but it is the building of self-identity and self-esteem of the client. The Wall Las Memorias Project has a great
reputation in creating change in the community by mobilizing community surrounding issues that affect the community. From supporting an AIDS hospice in Tijuana, helping increase community member participation in the local neighborhood councils to addressing social injustice, the organization has become the backbone of the community it its quest to helping improve the quality of life for all Angelinos.
AIDS Monument
To serve as a focal point and address the issues of
cultural silence in the community, the organization
constructed the first publicly funded AIDS monument in the nation. The monument received the financial support from the State of California, the city of Los Angeles and numerous corporations and foundations.
The monument is located at Lincoln Park in Northeast Los Angeles and contains painted murals depicting life with AIDS and has the names of many lost to the community from AIDS. It contains gardens and the arch of hope.
