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Advocacy

Loud & Clear: Voicing Our Right To Care

Winston-Salem: March 31 | Asheville: May 5 | Columbia, SC: May 12

This event is sponsored by

Register Now

Tuesday, March 31, 2026
10:30am – 2:30pm

Clemmons Library
6365 James Street
Clemmons, NC
 (336) 703-2920

Register Now

Tuesday, May 5, 2026

Location TBD
Asheville, NC
(336) 703-2960

Tuesday, May 12, 2026

Location TBD
Winston-Salem, NC
(336) 703-2960

Our Voices Are Power!

Join NCAAN in Winston-Salem (March 31), Asheville (May 5), and Columbia, SC (May 12) for one or all of three powerful advocate events taking place across North Carolina! Together, we’re uniting and activating in one movement for healthcare justice.

Alicia Diggs, Manager of the Office of Community Engagement at UNC CFAR, and Melissa Ditmore, the author of Unbroken Chains will be our guides through three critical conversations on defending and advancing healthcare access for marginalized communities. In addition, Kayla Earley, the Community Liaison Manager at ViiV Healthcare, and Shane Lukas of A Great Idea will facilitate interactive workshops on advocacy and power-building in the South. 

It’s time for us to take matters into our own (collective) hands when it comes to our rights and access to care. This March and May, join NCAAN for Loud & Clear: Voicing our Right to Care and let’s get to work defending and advancing health equity across the Carolinas!

Event Facilitators

Image of Alicia Diggs. Alicia is a Black woman with locs in an updo with cowrie shells adornments. She is smiling at the camera, wearing red lipstick and dangly earrings with butterfly pattern in a teardrop shape. She is wearing a brightly-colored patterned button up. The background is blurred vegetation.

Alicia Diggs

Manager of the Office of Community Engagement, University of North Carolina Center for AIDS Research

Author, Standing On My Healing: From Tainted To Chosen

Presenting: 

Alicia Diggs is a transformative thought leader, humanitarian, advocate, and author dedicated to equity, empowerment, and community engagement. As the Manager of the Office of Community Engagement (OCE) at the University of North Carolina Center for AIDS Research (UNC CFAR), she oversees initiatives that amplify community voices in HIV research and care. Alicia’s leadership ensures the Meaningful Involvement of People with Lived Experience (MIPA) is not just practiced but honored.

Living unapologetically as a Black woman with HIV, Alicia brings authenticity and compassion to every space she enters. Alicia holds advance degrees in Social Work and Public Health. She has served on the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA), a current member of the National HIV and Aging Advocacy Network (NHAAN), and REPRIEVE Community Advisory Board, among others.

As the author of Standing On My Healing: From Tainted To Chosen, Alicia also inspires self-reflection and restoration through Still Waters: 30 Days of Scripture, Reflection, and Restoration as well as In Love with Myself: Finding Inner Peace and Acceptance Journal. Her mission is clear; to educate, empower, and elevate communities until every person can live fully, freely, and without fear.

An image of Melissa Ditmore. She has pale skin, long dark hair, and is wearing a bright red shirt. She has a contemplative expression.

Melissa Ditmore

Author, Unbroken Chains

Presenting: Only Rights Can Stop the Wrongs: Using our rights to ensure access to healthcare for marginalized communities

Melissa Ditmore is a researcher and writer who has focused on the human and civil rights of members of marginalized communities in Africa, Asia, and the Americas for more than two decades. She co-founded the Urban Justice Center Sex Workers Project in New York City in 2001 and developed its research agenda. She also worked with United Nations agencies, United States Agency for International Development (USAID) contractors, and non-governmental organizations in Africa, Asia and the United States, planning and implementing HIV-prevention programs and anti-human-trafficking interventions, particularly promoting human rights for marginalized groups, and conducting research about sex workers and people who use drugs. She enjoyed this gratifying work for over twenty years, until the current presidential administration shuttered most USAID programs and stopped funding UN agencies, eliminating most of these programs. Her most recent book is Unbroken Chains: The Hidden Role of Human Trafficking in the American Economy (Beacon Press, 2023.)

Image of Kayla earley. Kayla is pale and has a short blonde undercut. Kayla is wearing dark glasses and has a small grin. The background of the image is a graphic pattern.

Kayla Earley

Community Liaison Manager, ViiV Healthcare

Presenting: Pivot to Power

 

Kayla Earley (all pronouns) is a Charlotte-native with a passion for public health. She has worked in HIV since 2014. She attended Lenoir-Rhyne University for both her Bachelor of Science in Community Health and Master of Public Health. She currently serves as an External Affairs Community Liaison Manager for ViiV Healthcare, where her role is to listen to communities, activate a response, amplify voices, and sustain resources in areas most impacted by HIV.

Shane Lukas of A Great Idea

Shane Lukas

Owner & Creative Strategist, A Great Idea

Presenting: Interactive Workshop on Southern Advocacy and Power-Building

Shane brings more than 25 years of award-winning brand strategy, graphic design, and development to A Great Idea. He is also a public speaker and lifelong harm reduction advocate for social justice through community organizing and education. He recently graduated with an MBA from the University of North Carolina—Wilmington, where he expanded my business acumen and leadership skills. Shane helps mission-driven organizations create impactful and engaging brand communications for the care and community sectors.

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