Journalist and Blogger, Author, Filmmaker, Public Intellectual.
Consultant on HIV, women's health, gender justice, Africa, Haiti.

My mantra: Action follows intention.

About me: I'm a longtime writer and journalist working in different media, newly a blogger. I have focused on AIDS for most of my professional careers, including as a writer, human rights advocate, activist and community educator.

Since January 2010, I have turned my attention to the urgent crisis facing Haiti and Haitian women, girls and community groups in the wake of the January 12 earthquake. My family roots are in Haiti and I was a reporter there in the 1980s and 1990s for the San Francisco Examiner (and contributor to Nation, Village Voice, etc.)

My books include "Under the Bone," (FSG, 1994), set in post-Duvalier Haiti, and a non-fiction book, “Moving Mountains: The Race to Treat Global AIDS"(Verso, 2006).” They are available via Amazon.com or local bookstores.

In film, I co-produced the 1-hr documentary, "Pills, Profits, Protest: Chronicle of the Global AIDS Movement," shown on US Showtime in 2005. It's available for rental or purchase with an educational DVD from Outcast Films (www.outcast-films.com).

My current work: Journalism and advocacy related to Rebuilding Haiti. Blogging at www.haitivox.com and working to launch Poto Mitan: Rebuilding Haiti global feminist solidarity initiative.

2005-09 primary work. Writing, and advocacy with a focus on HIV and gender-based violence in Rwanda, DRC - Africa.

In 2003, I teamed up with two pioneering US physicians, Dr. Kathy Anastos and then Dr. Mardge Cohen, to found WE-ACTx -– the Women’s Equity in Access to Care and Treatment initiative. On the web: www.we-actx.org.

WE-ACTx is a global effort to help deliver rapid access to HIV treatment and services to affected women and girls in resource-poor countries. We began working in Rwanda in 2004 to help women survivors of genocidal rape who have HIV, and today, with our sister NGO, WE-ACTx for Hope, we provide over 5000 Rwandans, including many children, with free, comprehensive HIV care and services, including income-generation and education programs.

WE-ACTx promotes a holistic, grassroots, partnership model of care, working with the Rwanda government and 24 Rwandan NGO partners.

I remain focused on the link of HIV and gender-based violence, especially in war, and work with grassroots groups in other countries on this issue, particularly in East and Southern Africa (Sudan, N Uganda, DRC, newly Kenya). I will continue to share the message of survival, hope, leadership that I have encountered in Rwanda.

With PulseWire, I hope to further network women and grassroots leaders working in the HIV/AIDS and gender justice field, and across other sectors.