Project TEACH (Treatment Education Activists Combating HIV) is an innovative health education program which trains people living with HIV/AIDS to act as peer educators, activists and advocates in the under-served communities hardest hit by the AIDS pandemic — low-income communities and communities of color. TEACH focuses not only on prevention but treatment education, outreach and advocacy. Projec
t TEACH began in 1996 and has since graduated more than 3,000 people. Our core training program teaches people living with HIV the basics of secondary prevention and methods of communicating this information to others living with HIV. It is founded on the belief that people have a right to know about their own bodies and to determine their own health care. Classes run in the winter, spring, summer, and fall and are open to anyone who is living with HIV. Topics include staying healthy when you are HIV positive through assertive use of health care, pharmaceutical and complementary therapies, prevention and early treatment of infections, nutrition, clinical trials, stress reduction and peer support. Many of our graduates have gone on to become peer educators or community leaders in the field of HIV/AIDS care. In addition to Project TEACH, our education department sponsors Frontline TEACH, a five-week condensed version of the class for family members, support workers, or people who work in the HIV/AIDS field. Enrollment is not limited to people who are living with HIV. Further programs offered are TEACH Outside, available to HIV positive people who have been incarcerated, Latino TEACH, a 5-week class for Spanish speaking people living with HIV hosted at Prevention Point Philadelphia, Women’s TEACH, a 5-week class for women living with HIV, and TEACH alumni programming for TEACH, TEACH Outside, Womens TEACH, and Latino TEACH graduates.
