Collective Action for Collective Impact: Southern HIV/AIDS Awareness Day (SHAAD) 2026 by Mardrequs Harris, MAEd
There is something powerful about coming together. Not simply gathering in the same room, but bringing our voices, experiences, expertise, ideas, resources, struggles, victories, and dreams together with a shared understanding that none of us has to do this work alone.
This year the Southern HIV/AIDS Awareness Day (SHAAD) theme “Collective Action for Collective Impact.” It is more than just a theme—it is a call to action.
For Southerners, the work before us is complex. We are navigating a rapidly changing social and political landscape while continuing to address HIV, health inequities, stigma, racism, homophobia, transphobia, economic injustice, and the many systems that too often determine who has access to opportunity, care, safety, and hope. But we also know something else: we have always been more powerful together than we have ever been apart.
We are not only observing an awareness day but taking it one step further. In 2026, the theme takes all we’ve done and pushes us one step further, it’s challenging us to not only do the work, but to DO IT TOGETHER. It asks the question: What happens when we move from conversation to coordination? From connection to collaboration? From individual efforts to collective action?
The answer is impact.
Collective impact does not mean that we all do the same work. It means we recognize that our different gifts, organizations, movements, communities, and perspectives can become exponentially more powerful when they are aligned around a shared purpose. It means sharing resources instead of guarding them. Building bridges instead of silos. Creating opportunities instead of competition. And understanding that when one of us advances, we all have an opportunity to move forward.
SHAAD is about action and with that comes a renewed responsibility for each of us. A responsibility to challenge assumptions, build relationships, exchange knowledge, identify opportunities, dream boldly, and most importantly, find your people. Find the person whose work complements yours. Find the organization that shares your vision. Find the partner who can help take an idea from possibility to practice. Find the connection that becomes a collaboration that takes you into SHAAD 2027 stronger than you are today.
The future of our communities will not be built by one organization, one leader, one funder, one movement, or one strategy. It will be built by all of us, together.
There will be challenges. There will be moments when the road ahead feels uncertain. There will be times when progress seems slower than we want it to be.
But I believe this:
If we organize together, we can move together.
If we strategize together, we can build together.
If we fight together, we can win together.
So, what does collective action actually look like?
It looks like collaboration with intention.
Not simply attending the same meetings or adding another organization to a coalition, but building relationships that result in shared strategies, coordinated efforts, and measurable outcomes.
It looks like sharing resources.
Knowledge, funding, connections, opportunities, platforms, and visibility should not stop at organizational boundaries. If we have something that can help our collective movement move forward, we should ask, “Who else needs this?”
It looks like shared accountability.
Collective impact requires us to be willing to measure more than individual success. We must ask whether our communities are healthier, whether people are accessing care, whether stigma is decreasing, whether services are reaching those who have historically been left behind, and whether our policies are creating better conditions for people to thrive.
It looks like making room.
Young people. People living with HIV. Black & Brown LGBTQIA+ Southerners. Rural communities. People who use drugs. People experiencing housing instability. People who are too often spoken about but not invited to speak with us. Their voices cannot simply be represented in our work—they must help shape it.
And finally, collective action looks like DOING SOMETHING but together because when we do it together, WE WILL WIN!