NAPWA

From the President's report by Peter Canavan:

“A Year of Great Significance”

The past twelve months can best be characterised as a year of great significance for NAPWA, our member organisations and positive Australians.

This was a year that has seen NAPWA rightfully gain the confidence to demonstrate true leadership at a national level as the national peak organisation advocating on behalf of plwhas across Australia.

Thanks to a number of significant developments over the year, NAPWA has gained the capacity and resources to provide strong leadership and support which is no longer about tokenism, nor solely about the often-tireless efforts of a few individuals, no longer measured solely in terms of unpaid endeavours and gains.

As President, I sincerely wish to thank the HIV community sector, its leaders and our funders for their confidence in NAPWA to provide this national leadership and for this opportunity to rise to the many and varied current and future challenges for positive Australians.

And I most certainly want to thank member organisations, past and present executive, committee members and staff for their efforts over the years which have earned NAPWA this special recognition, and now, the opportunity to make a real difference as a ‘true’ partner in Australia’s response to HIV.

We are nothing and will achieve little unless we can learn from our past, recognise our strengths and build upon them in working together in a united response to HIV.

And indeed one of our greatest lessons in HIV to date must be that through acknowledging difference and recognising diversity, we can begin to work with this difference and gain a united and synergistic response.

It is indeed a significant moment in time when both the infected and the affected know that they are partners and that each needs the other in their efforts in the ‘good fight’.

NAPWA will now take on a new challenge as a result of this positioning. It is my vision that in twelve months from now we will be able to claim that NAPWA has added a new dimension to national advocacy efforts for positive Australians. And that dimension will demonstrate successes as we assist ourselves to find our own solutions to living with HIV.

A new dimension of ‘self help’ which will see NAPWA further the work outlined in our Strategic Directions Paper in the areas of national positive advocacy and representation, issues coordination, community consultation and organisational capacity development.

As NAPWA continues to mature, you will see our work proceed and progress in partnership by:

1. Strengthening and developing key strategic alliances;
2. Being attendant to outcomes;
3. Increasing the focus on health maintenance and quality of life issues;
4. Identifying innovative community initiatives to complement existing programs;
5. Advocating on unmet basic needs of positive Australians;
6. Maintaining a focus on leadership, skills-building and participation; and
7. Developing national policy.

Attachment	Size	Type
NAPWA Annual Report 2000-01	114.31 KB	PDF