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The Grassroot Project: Bringing change to Washington's HIV crisis
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Alarmed by the prevalence of HIV in Washington D.C., Tyler Spencer founded the Grassroot Project in 2009. Harnessing the popularity of sport to run HIV prevention programmes, the organisation's impact has grown since.

An alarming trend

Alarmed that 13- to 24-year-olds reportedly account for 26 percent of new HIV infections in the U.S., Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U) participant Tyler Spencer has mobilised more than 400 varsity athletes from 30 teams at Georgetown, George Washington, and Howard universities to bring change to Washington D.C., the city with the highest prevalence of HIV/AIDS in the country.

D.C. is often highlighted as a hub of international development or as the centre of the federal government, but you rarely read about the people who were born and raised in our city,” said 26-year old Spencer. Brought to the nation’s capital for a volunteer opportunity in college, he was shocked to learn that the city has a HIV infection rate rivalling some nations in Sub-Saharan Africa. “Because so many of D.C.’s resources are focused outside of its borders, a lot of the local problems are ignored. Meanwhile, there’s plenty of work to be done right in our backyard.

Responding to the epidemic

Spencer is determined to increase HIV screenings among youth, who have low rates of testing despite the demographic’s troubling number of new cases. The CDC reports that only 22 percent of high school students who’ve had sex have been tested for HIV, while 60 percent of those infected don’t realise their positive status.

Drawing from his summer outreach experience in South Africa, where he discovered soccer’s ability to start a dialogue on HIV/AIDS, Spencer founded the Grassroot Project in 2009 to address the epidemic on the domestic front in a language kids would understand.

The initiative started on a “shoestring budget,” but received a boost when Spencer attended the 2011 meeting of CGI U. Joining more than 1,000 students, youth organisations, topic experts, and celebrities engaged in efforts to address global challenges, he made a commitment to train college athletes in the D.C. area to teach an 8-week sports-based HIV prevention programme for middle school students.

A growing impact
To build on his impact, Spencer returned to CGI U in 2012 and made another commitment, expanding the Grassroot Project to include voluntary, confidential HIV testing for the district’s high school students, as well. More than 500 high school students will be screened for HIV by college athletes by the end of the 2012-2013 school year.

Currently in his second year of a public health doctoral programme at Oxford University, Spencer hopes that HIV education will transform how young people around the world – and in D.C. – address the epidemic. “There is a taboo around the disease,” he said. “Stigma and discrimination allow for myths to spread, leading to high rates of infections and often preventing HIV-positive community members from going to get treatment.”

A grant from the D.C. Department of Health is currently allowing the Grassroot Project to train dozens of college athletes as volunteer HIV testers and counsellors. This month, the organisation will prepare its first group of athletes from the University of Maryland.

[This article has been edited by the Operating Team.]

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