Page 7 - ImpactReport_FY19

Shelia felt alone until empowered

to become an advocate

hat some would out there who had been
consider a curse, diagnosed long before me.”
Shelia A. Crockett The experience motivated
considers a blessing. At Shelia to embrace her life
the age of 26, she was and become an advocate,
diagnosed with HIV and helping women know
referred to Parkland’s HIV/ they are not alone and
AIDS Clinic. For almost encouraging young
three decades she felt people to get tested.

Shelia has taken her personal

experience and turned it into a message
of hope and positivity for others.

alone as an HIV-positive “Parkland gives me hope
woman. But when a Parkland to know that there is going
case manager encouraged to be another day that I can
her to attend a conference survive,” she said. “When
for women living with I was diagnosed, I didn’t
HIV, everything in her life think I was going to see 30.
changed for the better. Now I realize I might get
“I finally realized I wasn’t to see 99.”
by myself,” Shelia said.
“There were many women