The AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition has announced a two-year, $250,000 grant from the Ford Foundation to fund a variety of community outreach and mobilization activities designed to inform and engage communities around the world about AIDS vaccine research.

Founded in 1995, AVAC is a community and consumer-based advocacy organization that works to accelerate the ethical development and delivery of AIDS vaccines to populations around the world. Over the past three years, the organization has placed special emphasis on increasing public awareness of the urgent need for an HIV vaccine.

"Community engagement is essential to moving AIDS vaccine research forward," said AVAC executive director Chris Collins. "From pushing governments and industry to accelerate research, to monitoring the ethics of clinical trials, to insisting on rapid global access to vaccines, members of AIDS-affected communities have an important role to play."

In addition to the Ford Foundation, AVAC receives support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation , the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, the Until There's a Cure Foundation, Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, and the Gill Foundation.