A bit of history was made last week in Washington, DC, as the world saw the International HIV/AIDS Conference return to the United States for the first time in twenty years. And as leaders in the response to this global epidemic, Levi Strauss & Co. and the Levi Strauss Foundation were honored to bring our pioneering spirit to the event.
At the conference, employees unveiled our second AIDS Memorial Quilt panel; we led a CEO pledge calling on 46 countries to lift travel restrictions for people living with HIV; we shared our own HIV/AIDS education programto help educate the hospitality industry in Washington, DC on HIV/AIDS issues; and we put a denim conference bag in the hands of every attendee, providing indigenous Guatemala women with an income-earning opportunity and HIV/AIDS education.
To kick off the conference’s opening ceremony and mark this momentous return, the Levi Strauss Foundation also produced a short film, “Turning the Tide Together,” highlighting, over the past 30 years, innovative community and corporate responses to the epidemic across the United States.
The message is simple but clear: to truly turn the tide on this epidemic, we have to fire on every cylinder to move forward together. Watch what happens when people do:
