Project TEACH (Treatment Education Activists Combating HIV) is an innovative health education program which trains people living with HIV/AIDS to act as peer educators, activists and advocates in the under-served communities hardest hit by the AIDS pandemic -- low-income communities and communities of color. TEACH focuses not only on prevention but treatment education, outreach and advocacy.

Project TEACH began 1996 and has since graduated more than 1,600 people. Our core training program teaches people living with HIV the basics of secondary prevention and methods of communicating this information to others living with HIV. It is founded on the belief that people have a right to know about their own bodies and to determine their own health care.

Project TEACH classes are twice a week for nine weeks. Classes run in the spring, summer, and fall and are open to anyone who is living with HIV. Topics include staying healthy when you are HIV positive through assertive use of health care, pharmaceutical and complementary therapies, prevention and early treatment of infections, nutrition, clinical trials, stress reduction and peer support. Many of our graduates have gone on to become peer educators or community leaders in the field of HIV/AIDS care.

In addition to Project TEACH, our education department sponsors Frontline TEACH, a five-week condensed version of the class for family members, support workers, or people who work in the HIV/AIDS field. Enrollment is not limited to people who are living with HIV. Further programs offered are TEACH Outside, available to HIV positive people who have been incarcerated, and weekly TEACH alumni meetings for TEACH and TEACH Outside graduates, held every Wednesday from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. at FIGHT, 1233 Locust Street, 5th floor front conference room.

For more information on Project TEACH or any of the education programs, please contact Leah Hilsey, program coordinator at 215.985.4448 ext. 233 or lhilsey@fight.org

To download applications for any of the TEACH classes,  click here.

For an interactive TEACH module on the web,  visit the TEACH Online website.