The Well Project: Leading with Community

One thing everyone can agree upon is that 2020 has been an extremely challenging year. And while it is important to recognize the struggle, we don't want to miss the opportunity to acknowledge our community's resilience and ability to uplift each other during such difficult times. This in no way is meant to minimize the challenges we've faced, only to recognize that positive things can emerge from darkness.

While The Well Project has long known the power of virtual community, the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting lockdowns demonstrated just how valuable it is. When the reality of the COVID-19 pandemic set in, we quickly adapted our programming to ensure people could not only connect regularly and find support, but also learn new ways to cope, a new skill, or just focus on overall well-being. On April 6, we launched the bi-weekly series (which continued through October), Stay Well at Home with The Well Project, where community members led amazing sessions sharing recipes, how to create a vision board, meditation techniques, exercises, budget recommendations and more importantly, themselves and their experiences. When we realized that opportunities to build leadership and networking were disappearing because of our temporarily virtual world (and no in-person conferences), we created The Well Project Leadership Exchange, which brings together experts from across our HIV community for fascinating conversations providing unexpected insights into each other's work. When we needed to mourn and heal after George Floyd's murder, we created quiet spaces for us to come together and do just that.

Several of our Community Advisory Board (CAB) members generously shared how The Well Project’s community has positively impacted them during these challenging times, including Katie Willingham below. Please click here to view them all, which we'll share throughout the fundraising drive.

While it's tremendously difficult to ask for money in these circumstances, especially when many are suffering job loss or financial hardships, we are requesting support from those who are able, so that we can continue to provide responsive programming during these times. Your donations will help us continue to expand and connect our community so that no woman living with HIV anywhere in the world feels alone and build leadership and economic empowerment among women living with HIV.

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