With its principal place of business located in Washington, D.C., the Community Education Group (CEG) was established 22 years ago as the National Women and HIV/AIDS Project (NWAP). NWAP was created to address the dearth of public policy forums available women living with HIV and their allies at that time. In 1994, NWAP convened one of the first national meetings for women living with HIV and their allies in Atlanta, GA. This meeting resulted in the development and dissemination of the National Women and HIV/AIDS Survey and the National Women and HIV/AIDS Policy Agenda. In 1996, due to limited funding sources specific to women especially, women of color-focused organizations, NWAP transformed into CEG. CEG built upon NWAP’s mission by maintaining a core focus on women living with and affected by HIV/AIDS and expanding its mission to not only address the evolving needs of African-American/Black women and their partners. CEG’s population focus also includes all people of color as well as other disenfranchised communities most vulnerable to HIV and HCV; including, but, not limited to African-American/Black men, ex-offenders, sex workers, substance users and transgender individuals.

CEG’s mission is and remains rooted in developing community-level strategies to stop the spread of HIV, HCV, and substance abuse and eliminate health disparities by developing replicable models for the use of other community and faith-based partners. Successful program design is accomplished through training indigenous persons to become community health workers, educating and testing the hard to reach, condom distribution, HIV screening, motivational interviewing and sharing our expertise with other organizations through national networks and local capacity building efforts. In the early 2000s, CEG successfully operationalized its mission through the development and implementation of its Community Health and Medical Personnel Services (CHAMPS) program. The innovative CHAMPS program was designed to increase linkage to care for HIV and HCV treatment. CEG’s model was lauded by Department of Health and Humans Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius."