In this episode, Dr. P is joined by lawyer and activist Dafina Ward, JD.
Dafina Ward, J.D. is an attorney and non-profit strategist with nearly fifteen years of experience addressing HIV and health equity issues in the southern United States. Working in partnership with a range of advocates—from grassroots leaders to federal decision-makers—she is a trusted voice in regional and national spaces. With nearly twenty years of experience in community grantmaking, Dafina is an expert in place-based funding strategies, coalition-building, and capacity building for emerging organizations and leaders.
Dafina currently serves as Executive Director of the Southern AIDS Coalition (SAC), an organization of regional focus and national reach, with a mission to end the HIV epidemic in the South. Through a range of programs and initiatives across the sixteen southern states and Washington, DC, SAC utilizes community-centered policy advocacy, grantmaking, leadership development, and capacity building trainings to support transformation in the region. In 2019, SAC created Southern HIV/AIDS Awareness Day [SHAAD] to amplify the HIV crisis in the region. Under Dafina’s leadership, SHAAD has become a nationally recognized day adopted by hundreds of organizations and reaching thousands annually.
Dafina has developed innovative programming for women and girls. She led the creation of Beauty in Knowing, an intervention that Johnson & Johnson deemed "globally innovative", training cosmetology students to engage clients in conversations about HIV, sexual health, and intimate partner violence.
As a founding member of the Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham LGBTQ Fund, she created a grantwriting training for LGBTQ+ youth, and developed a mini-grant process to support their vision. In recognition of her work, the LGBTQ Fund awarded “Dafina Ward Grants” to small LGBTQ-led organizations in 2017.
Dafina shares her reflections on the intersections of race, gender, and health through writing, with work appearing in the Washington Post, Role Reboot, and The Body. She was recognized by POZ Magazine twice in 2021—as the July/August POZ Hero and as a member of the 2021 POZ 100 (the magazine’s list of the 100 most influential Black HIV advocates in the nation).
Dafina received her BA in Mass Media Arts from Clark Atlanta University (Atlanta, GA) and her Juris Doctor from Temple University’s Beasley School of Law (Philadelphia, PA). She and her husband reside in Bluffton, South Carolina with their brilliant daughters.