Welcome Brothers and Sisters

The Mosaic Initiative is a grassroots HIV/AIDS prevention and education organization.  Our sole focus is to ask the one question: What can we do together to stop the spread of HIV?  Our core belief is that we have all the resources necessary to stop the spread of HIV through testing and education infused with compassion and love for all people.   We also believe that the best place to demonstrate this is in our own backyard.

The call to end the HIV/AIDS pandemic has brought people from all walks of life together to take notice of the needs and the plight of people most impacted by HIV/AIDS.  Disenfranchised woman, gay men who have been shunned by their families and community, and children from all walks of life have drawn people into awareness and action.  For some, being personally impacted by HIV either because of acquiring HIV or knowing someone who has HIV has brought them in.  For others, it has been through the awareness of AIDS in far-away places like Africa.  When these groups can be brought together to share knowledge, experience and passions with a vision of stopping the spread of HIV beyond borders and boundaries, we can make this vision a reality. 

Our commitment comes from a very passionate group of people from very different walks of life who have found that when we put down our swords of division, we find a common ground and common humanity.   We are made up of gay and straight people, secular humanists and evangelical Christians, Americans and Kenyans, women and men, youth and seniors. 

Our main objective everywhere we work is to promote that all people “KNOW YOUR STATUS”.  Testing is a truth serum that tells us not only our respective HIV-status, but exposes our collective knowledge about HIV as a virus and its presence in our own backyard as well as in our country and around the world.   

Our History

The Mosaic Initiative was founded in 2005 by Brad Ogilvie and Cathy Hetrick, both Wheaton, IL residents at the time, who had been working on the treatment side in housing and advocacy for over a combined 15 years.   They started the organization out of a passion and commit to stop the spread of HIV.  They knew that the spread of HIV is preventable, but HIV continued to spread.  Increasingly, people from all walks of life were responding to HIV/AIDS but often from the treatment-side.  Often prevention suffered as organizations maintained funding for treating and serving people with HIV.  The Mosaic Initiative believes that HIV-prevention is a community responsibility, and that it is important for HIV-prevention organizations be autonomous from but work closely with HIV/AIDS service organizations.   Successful prevention is an inherent threat to treatment, and this is true for many conditions, not just HIV/AIDS. 

Armed with this knowledge, The Mosaic Initiative was established to pick up where Ogilvie and Hetrick left off from their previous job, engaging community partners in suburban Chicago and rural Kenya in the question “what do we need to do to stop the spread of HIV?”  What emerged in all these arenas was that people need to “Know Your Status”.  During the next two years, education programs took root in schools, churches, colleges, in the business community and in municipal buildings.  Mayors, law enforcement officials, educators, business and religious leaders have participated in testing clinics in the Chicago area.  Faith-based groups that had previously only considered HIV/AIDS an African problem have begun to engage in awareness, education and testing in their own backyards.  Meanwhile, in rural Kenya, a community center was built to provide meals for orphans and to serve as a local education center (with the goal that it will become a testing and treatment center). 

In 2007, Ogilvie moved to Washington, DC to work for William Penn House, a Quaker Program Center, while continuing his commitment to the mission and vision of The Mosaic Initiative.  HIV rates in our nation’s capital rival those of many parts of sub-Saharan Africa, but few people notice.  The Mosaic Initiative has expanded its reach to more and more people with a commitment that when all people know their status we can stop the spread of HIV, and the best place to start this is in one’s own backyard.  Government funding is necessary, but sometime the policies attached with the funding inhibit effective testing and education.  We nurture communities to step up to take responsibility for stopping the spread of HIV through education, testing and compassion for all people that we will be successful.  We invite you to join learn more about our current projects and to get involved.

The Mosic Tile  continues to be a huge success thanks to the many individuals and organizations that are now a part of our Founder’s Circle.   As always, we especially like to thank the following companies and foundations for their leadership in supporting us as we got off the ground; 

J. Walton Design (Logo design, event invitations) http://www.jwaltondesign.com

Nonni’s Food Company, Inc. http://www.nonnis.com

Allegra Printing Company (Printing Grant) http://www.allegranetwork.com

AIDS Foundation of Chicago (Kenya Initiative)  http://www.aidschicago.org