Whitman-walker health Showbiz and Celebrity Breaking News

“We lost over 500 people in D.C. last year to overdoses, both people who are intentionally using opioids and people whose drugs are laced with opioids who don’t know it,” says Alexandra Bradley, the outreach and community engagement manager for the D.C.-based harm reduction organization HIPS, Inc., which serves communities impacted by sex work and substance abuse.“We’ve seen fentanyl show up in cocaine and methamphetamine and other drugs, which are stimulants,” notes Bradley.

“We lost over 500 people in D.C. last year to overdoses, both people who are intentionally using opioids and people whose drugs are laced with opioids who don’t know it,” says Alexandra Bradley, the outreach and community engagement manager for the D.C.-based harm reduction organization HIPS, Inc., which serves communities impacted by sex work and substance abuse.“We’ve seen fentanyl show up in cocaine and methamphetamine and other drugs, which are stimulants,” notes Bradley.

“This is a big day, and we’re here with gratitude and anticipation,” said Naseema Shafi, CEO of Whitman-Walker Health, addressing an audience of several hundred people at a ribbon-cutting for its brand new Southeast D.C. health center on Monday.Rows of chairs, with a rainbow-colored fan nestled on each seat, were spread across a lawn, dotted with wooden tables shaded by large umbrellas, facing the east side of the health care center.

See You There displays documents, stories, and works of art, some newly commissioned, that offer a glimpse of Black and lesbian life in the city.

D.C. page features displays selected by Whitman-Walker Health, the federally-qualified community health center that specializes in LGBTQ and HIV care and was a central player in the District’s early response to the HIV epidemic, and by the Library of Congress.

See also: Healthy Outlook: A Q&A with Whitman-Walker Health CEO Naseema ShafiNaseema Shafi, the CEO of Whitman-Walker Health, notes that the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has “shone a light” on health disparities and disparities in terms of access to care, that many of Whitman-Walker’s needier clients face.

When We First Arrived, to shed more light on this ongoing humanitarian and public policy crisis.Curated by the Corner’s executive director Ruth Noack, the exhibit showcases over 100 artworks created by leading visual artists responding directly to testimonies from some of the detained children and organized in close collaboration with DYKWTCA — an art initiative whose name is an acronym for Do You Know Where The Children Are?Sales of the donated works of art will benefit the Safe Passage

Photo: Whitman-Walker Health.