WWAV is excited to welcome our two newest staff members, Jenny Holl and Charles Haywood, who together will be spearheading the Louisiana statewide Ending the Epidemic (EtE) work. The process will span several months and will involve creating working groups that will develop recommendations to inform the EtE Steering Committee and Executive Committee. This plan will serve as a model to be shared across the state of Louisiana.

WWAV has a thirty-year history of building community capacity to advance health and wellbeing through a root cause analysis of the social determinants of health. We work from the understanding that communities hold their truths in their stories; they also hold the solutions. Since our founding in 1989, we have partnered with communities to map the structural landscape of health through an intersectional Black feminist analysis and to address the barriers that communities identify to their own flourishing, including racism, poverty, criminalization, and gender-based violence. We also work with providers, gatekeepers, and policy-makers who have the power to effect change on these issues. Through this hybrid approach, we are able to ensure the most expansive and visionary of policy platforms are meticulously implemented at the regional, state, city, community, and interpersonal levels.
Jenny and Charles stand in this powerful legacy, and we are thrilled that they will be guiding our state towards a strategic plan for EtE.
Jenny Holl, Program Manager
Jenny grew up in San Francisco, but has called New Orleans home since 2016. In her time here, she has worked on various projects aimed at improving access to reproductive health services, ranging from research on abortion restrictions and experiences with care during pregnancy, to reducing financial barriers to emergency contraception and abortion services through local community-based organizations. Previously, she has worked on programs relating to maternal mortality, sex worker rights, and HIV/AIDS. She is excited be joining WWAV as the Ending the Epidemic Program Manager, which will allow her to work with communities across Louisiana to take control of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in our state. She is committed to finding solutions that allow us to increase access to testing and comprehensive treatment, and that reduce stigma and other barriers to care in order to achieve greater health and well-being. Jenny holds a Master of Public Health, with concentration on Global Sexual and Reproductive Health and Population Studies from Emory University in Atlanta and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Charles Haywood, Program Associate
Charles is a native and resident of New Orleans, LA.  2018 marks twenty years of advocacy,  community service, social service and prevention/education . Having worked for several CBO’s , health clinics and family support organizations, he has had the opportunity to implement and facilitate focus groups promoting healthy behaviors, provide support systems within the LGBTQ community, provide case management services, and lead peer education projects. He most recently worked as a PrEP Navigator.  Charles looks forward to working with WWAV as the Ending The Epidemic Program Associate and the opportunities it provides statewide to create necessary conversations, address stigma and reduce risks within communities that are considered at risk