GLOW (Growing Leadership Opportunities for Women) is a bilingual HIV education and women’s wellness program designed to empower women to be leaders in their communities, contributing to healthier networks and collective action to end the HIV epidemic. The curriculum is delivered in English and Spanish, allowing participants to grow together and become subject matter experts in HIV education for women.
Through in-person and virtual trainings, community mini-grants, conferences, outreach events, and local health projects, GLOW participants learn in order to teach within their own communities. The program builds sisterhood between cisgender and transgender women, creating a strong, culturally grounded network for HIV education, wellness, and empowerment. At its core, GLOW believes that when we trust and invest in women, we create sustainable change, one woman, one project, and one community at a time.
Why GLOW Matters
Women remain underrepresented in HIV prevention and leadership efforts, despite their significant impact on the epidemic. In 2022, women accounted for 19% of all new HIV diagnoses and 23% of people living with HIV in the United States (AIDSVu, CDC). Regional and racial disparities persist, women in the South experienced new HIV diagnosis rates more than twice as high as those in the Northeast, and Black women represented half of all new HIV diagnoses among women, despite making up only 13% of the U.S. female population (AIDSVu, 2024). Yet women made up only 9% of PrEP users in 2023, highlighting the urgent need to expand HIV prevention access, education, and leadership among women. GLOW responds to these inequities by equipping women, particularly Black, Latina, and transgender women, with the skills, networks, and confidence to lead in their communities and in the national HIV response. (Sources: AIDSVu, CDC. “The HIV Epidemic Among Women & Girls” (2024); “Black Women and PrEP” (2024).)
Mission
GLOW’s mission is to end the HIV epidemic through women’s leadership, community education, and collective empowerment. The program increases women’s awareness and leadership in HIV education and wellness, inspiring positive action and equitable access to health resources for HIV prevention, treatment, and care.
Vision
A world where all women, cisgender and transgender, have the knowledge, confidence, and community support to lead healthy, empowered lives, free from HIV stigma and health inequities.
Meet the GLOW 2025 Cohort
GLOW Facilitation Team 2025
USCHA 2025 GLOW Mini- Grants Team
GLOW Value Add
GLOW bridges leadership, culture, and health education to create a sustainable model of community-driven HIV prevention and women’s empowerment.
GLOW Purpose and Objectives
Purpose
The GLOW Training Series equips women with the knowledge, confidence, and tools to lead HIV education and wellness efforts in their communities. Through bilingual and inclusive learning spaces, women explore health, empowerment, and leadership, building a strong network committed to ending the HIV epidemic.
Program Objectives
- Provide a comprehensive sexual health and wellness training program for women.
- Create a safe space for women to engage in open and authentic discussions about topics often considered taboo.
- Increase women’s knowledge of HIV and STIs, empowering them to make informed decisions about their health.
- Enable women to share the knowledge and skills they acquire with their peers through the GLOW program.
Curriculum: What to Expect During GLOW Trainings
Through GLOW, women will gain valuable insights, develop leadership capabilities, and enhance their communication skills. With a blend of interactive educational sessions, GLOW offers a safe and supportive environment for women to thrive and flourish. Our carefully crafted curriculum covers a wide range of topics, including:
1. Holistic Health: GLOWing Through Mental Health & Self-Care
Description: This session offers tools for mental well-being and stress management. Together, we’ll explore how cis and trans women can care for themselves while leading in their communities, navigating stigma, or managing burnout.
Objective: Equip participants with strategies to strengthen mental health as a foundation for leadership and community resilience.
2. Sexual Health GLOW: STI Treatment, Testing & Prevention
Description: This session provides an overview of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), focusing on prevention, routine testing, and treatment options as part of overall wellness.
Objective: Increase awareness of STI prevention and normalize testing as part of routine care.
3. Innovation Spotlight: GLOWing with PrEP, PEP & HIV Prevention
Description: Learn the basics of HIV transmission and explore the latest prevention options, including PEP, daily PrEP, and new long-acting injectable PrEP.
Objective: Strengthen knowledge of HIV prevention tools so women feel informed and empowered in their health decisions.
4. Empowerment & Pleasure: GLOWing in Sexual Health
Description: Explore pleasure, consent, and safer sex in a session that centers cis and trans women’s experiences. This inclusive space connects sexual health to personal power and wellness.
Objective: Encourage open conversations about empowerment and agency, helping women reclaim their choices.
5. Stories that GLOW: Reducing HIV Stigma Amongst Women
Description: Stigma remains one of the biggest barriers to HIV testing and care. In this session, women learn how to break silence, challenge harmful narratives, and use storytelling to create change.
Objective: Equip participants to challenge stigma and share stories that highlight resilience and strength.
6. Justice to GLOW: Health & Reproductive Rights for Women
Description: This session explores how reproductive rights, HIV prevention, and healthcare access intersect, especially for cis and trans women navigating unjust systems.
Objective: Build knowledge of reproductive justice and connect it with HIV prevention, equipping women to advocate for equity.
7. Professional GLOW-Up: Resumes, Interviewing & Leadership
Description: Boost your confidence and skills in resume writing, interviewing, and public speaking to support women’s professional growth.
Objective: Provide practical career tools so participants can build leadership in public health, advocacy, and beyond.
8. Advocate to GLOW: Women’s Voices in Health & Community
Description: Whether navigating healthcare, supporting others, or organizing in your community, advocacy matters. This session offers strategies to speak up in medical and public health settings.
Objective: Empower women with advocacy skills to navigate systems, demand equitable care, and strengthen community leadership.
What is Possible After GLOW
Graduating from GLOW training is only the beginning. After completing the program, women stay connected through a growing national network. Beyond the mini-grant opportunity, GLOW graduates continue to share educational resources for women, by women, and exchange new opportunities for learning and leadership. Participants are invited to apply for scholarships and mini-grants to attend the U.S. Conference on HIV/AIDS (USCHA), where they can present their community projects and represent GLOW on national platforms.
Graduates also have access to other opportunities to represent GLOW, such as attending community health events, conferences, and workshops that amplify their leadership. The women’s network built after training is just as valuable as the training itself, fostering collaboration, support, and visibility in the HIV movement. Through this ongoing fellowship, GLOW women continue to build leadership, strengthen advocacy, and inspire others toward a future free of HIV stigma.
GLOW Eligibility: Who Should Be Part of GLOW?
1. Demographic Considerations
GLOW is designed by and for women of color. This program is open to all cisgender and transgender women aged 18 and older. Our priority populations for 2025 are Latinas (May training in Houston) and Black women (Fall virtual sessions).
2. Interest and Commitment
Participants should demonstrate a genuine interest in enhancing their understanding of sexual health and wellness, and a commitment to actively engage in the training program. The training is designed for individuals at a basic to intermediate level of HIV knowledge, especially those new to these topics who wish to gain a strong foundation.
3. Willingness to Contribute
Participants should be open to engaging in candid and authentic discussions about sensitive topics related to sexual health and be willing to help create a safe and supportive environment for all participants.
4. Awareness and Learning Goals
Participants should express a desire to increase their knowledge and understanding of HIV and STIs, showing willingness to learn and apply this information to make informed decisions about their health and well-being.
5. Community Engagement
Preference may be given to individuals who show enthusiasm for sharing the knowledge and skills gained during the training with their communities. This can be demonstrated through previous community involvement or by participating in the mini-grants program to help disseminate information among peers.
2025: GLOW’s Year in Review
GLOW Training (Spanish), Houston, Tx
We began the year with our fully Spanish GLOW training, an affirming gathering of Latina women whose leadership demonstrated how essential bilingual spaces are for health equity. Women from Puerto Rico, Florida, Texas, and New York came together in a space grounded in language, culture, and community wisdom.
GLOW Virtual Training of Trainers (English)
Over the summer, we launched a virtual Training of Trainers to strengthen the English curriculum. This effort was guided by the leadership of the curriculum designers Aidel Hawkins of Detroit and Stephanie Woodson of Dallas, with evaluation leadership from Jasmine C. Ford of Maryland. Alongside the GLOW facilitation team also meaningfully contributed with their expertise to continue shaping our curriculum: Community leaders, LáDeia Johnson; Shadawn McCants, LPC; Chicago leaders Alexis Abarca, Adriana Maldonado, and Monica Brown; Los Angeles advocates Silvia Valerio and Alejandra Aguilar Avelino; Puerto Rico’s Norma I. Cartagena-Colón; South Carolina’s Alejandra de la Vega; Florida’s Brianna R. Benjamin; Washington, DC’s Angela Brown; and Dr. Karla F. Torres, whose work bridges communities across the U.S.–Mexico border. Each of them with their expertise and lived experience formed the heart of our 2025 programming.
U.S. Conference on HIV/AIDS
In addition, our GLOW presence at the U.S. Conference on HIV & AIDS (USCHA) became one of the most inspiring milestones of the year. GLOW women presented deeply impactful mini-grant projects demonstrating that when we trust and invest in women, they create solutions that carry entire communities forward. From Detroit, Michigan, MeYonna SwaVaye Jabbaar shared her project, I AM HER, a powerful brunch-style educational gathering designed to create an open, inclusive space where BIPOC cisgender women could learn about sexual and reproductive health while building confidence, sisterhood, and self-advocacy.
The Confessions Podcast: Voices of HIV+ Women
From Los Angeles, California, storytellers Citlalin López-Torres and Marylynn Ramos presented, this powerful and community-led bilingual storytelling platform created to break silence and stigma by uplifting the lived experiences of women living with HIV across generations and identities
Postales del Orgullo / Postcards of Pride
From New York City, Lina Rodríguez introduced, this healing arts initiative for recently arrived LGBTQIA+ immigrants living with or affected by HIV, combining community murals, sound healing, and safe spaces for storytelling and self-expression
Annette N. Sandoval
Annette N. Sandoval, a mental health professional and WPATH-certified clinician, shared her project highlighting the voices and needs of women aging with HIV, uplifting their experiences, reducing stigma, and helping shape future models of care through trauma-informed support circles.
Young Trans Women Leading the Future
From Puerto Rico and Minnesota, Mila Hellfyre Hernández presented this leadership summit for young trans women in rural Puerto Rico that focused on visibility, empowerment, education, and community mobilization.
GLOW x GLAAD
Cora published an article with GLAAD titled “Investing in Latina Women Is the Future of Ending the HIV Epidemic,” which lifted up the leadership of Latina women in HIV leadership. In addition, GLOW alumna Marylynn Ramos shared her journey during GLAAD’s Instagram Live series. These moments affirmed the power of storytelling as both education and liberation.
Website Upgrade
In partnership with NMAC’s Communications Department, we redesigned our GLOW webpage. Visitors can now explore full profiles and photographs of all 2025 GLOW facilitators and all 2025 USCHA GLOW mini-grant leaders. These profiles illuminate the diversity, brilliance, and commitment of the women who make GLOW what it is. Over the next few months, we will continue to add profiles of all 2024 and 2025 participants as we finalize evaluation data, ensuring that the full GLOW network is represented and celebrated.
GLOW 2025 Schedule
In 2025, GLOW will host one in-person and three virtual trainings, including a Training of Trainers (TOT) session and the launch of GLOW’s new interactive virtual curriculum. Recruitment for the 2025 virtual sessions has closed, but the GLOW 2026 schedule and applications will be announced soon.
- GLOW en Español – Houston, Texas: 15–18 de mayo (Presencial, en español)
- GLOW Training of Trainers (Virtual): June 9–10
Meet the GLOW Facilitation Team 2025/ Conoce al Equipo de Facilitación de GLOW
- GLOW Training of Trainers (Virtual): June 9–10
- GLOW Florida (Virtual): October 21–23
- GLOW North Carolina (Virtual): November 11–13
Program Evolution
2019: GLOW was created in response to the absence of a women-focused program within NMAC. Originally designed for cisgender women, the first cohort launched in February 2019. Despite funding shifts, GLOW evolved to become more inclusive.
2022: GLOW hosted 14 community engagement sessions across the U.S. to gather feedback and ideas from diverse women. This input shaped a more accessible and inclusive program for Women of Color.
2023: GLOW reconnected with the original cohort and welcomed transgender women, reinforcing its commitment to building inclusive spaces where all women can thrive.
2024: GLOW en Español was launched, with four successful trainings in Puerto Rico, Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York, expanding access and impact.
2025
Based on participant feedback, GLOW will remove breakout sessions so that all participants can learn together. A revised curriculum will merge HIV education and women’s wellness, designed for transgender and cisgender women to learn together throughout the GLOW experience.
2026: HIV Policy and the Future of GLOW
Beginning in Spring 2026, GLOW will expand its focus to HIV policy education, ensuring that women leaders of color are not only empowered within their careers but also positioned to shape equitable HIV policies at the local, state, and federal levels. Grounded in the 2025 AIDSWatch Policy Brief on Gender Justice, this evolution recognizes that cisgender and transgender women account for about a quarter of the domestic HIV epidemic, with the greatest percentage increase among transgender women. These gender disparities are compounded by race and geography, as Black, Latinx, and other women of color represent the majority of women living with HIV in the United States (AIDSWatch, 2025). Through policy training, mentorship, and direct engagement, beginning with participation in AIDSWatch 2026, GLOW participants will gain tools to educate policymakers, influence health equity agendas, and advocate for the structural changes needed to end the HIV epidemic among women. (Sources: AIDSWatch Policy Brief 2025; AIDSVu, CDC.)
Media & Community Outreach
Celebrating Marilynn Ramos: A Latina Voice for Advocacy and Healing
NMAC proudly celebrates Marilynn Ramos (@mari.lynn87), a Latina mother of five, HIV advocate, and storyteller who continues to inspire through her leadership and resilience. Marilynn recently joined GLAAD’s #GLAADHangout for an IG Live conversation with José Useche (@soyjoseuseche), Communications Manager at GLAAD.
Diagnosed with HIV at 19, Marilynn has transformed her lived experiences into a powerful platform for education and community care. From her work in homeless services, domestic violence advocacy, and addiction counseling, to her contributions on the Confesiones: Mujeres VIH+ Podcast, and her leadership through GLOW, an NMAC program supported by Gilead Sciences that empowers women through leadership, wellness, and HIV advocacy—**Marilynn represents the strength and spirit of Latinas leading the HIV movement.
Her conversation with José explored what advocacy, culture, and resilience mean to our community—reminding us that storytelling is a tool for liberation, connection, and healing.
Investing in Latina Women Is the Future of Ending the HIV Epidemic
“Celebrating Latine Heritage Month: Highlighting the leadership, resilience, and voices of Latine women and youth who are driving change in the fight to end HIV, and building inclusive, empowered communities across the country.”
Written by Cora Cartagena