Paisan Suwannawong was raised in one of Bangkok's biggest slums. After becoming addicted to heroin and then contracting AIDS from a dirty needle, he experienced firsthand the official indifference of the Thai government towards drug users with AIDS. That experience has turned him into Thailand's leading AIDS advocate -- and one of the world's fiercest AIDS activists. Paisan stops at nothing. He relentlessly works to ensure that people with HIV/AIDS in Thailand take an active role in shaping decisions that affect their lives. He also advocates for intravenous drug users and other marginalized populations to have equitable access to care, treatment, and harm reduction services in Thailand. Paisan is having a major impact on the course of the AIDS epidemic in his country.

Fatima Prioleau is a determined, courageous AIDS activist. She is also a 41-year-old African American woman, mother of 5 children, adjunct college professor of mathematics at the Borough of Manhattan Community College, and public school teacher. Since her AIDS diagnosis 9 years ago, Fatima has been engaged in persistent and insistent grassroots AIDS activism. Fatima recently formed the Women with HIV/AIDS Advocates Mobilized (WHAAM), a collaboration between women living with AIDS and HIV and community-based organizations, working in partnership to increase awareness of the ramifications of HIV and AIDS for women in highly impacted communities. She continues to galvanize women living with AIDS and HIV in NYC to confront those polices and systems that not only fail to see, but openly disregard, the unique challenges faced by women living with AIDS and HIV.

Virginia Shubert is an attorney, HIV/AIDS activist and co-founder of Housing Works. She has devoted her life to serving society's most desperate and vulnerable members. Recently Ginny secured a historic victory in the case Henrietta D. v. Giuliani, which for the first time guaranteed the right of everyone with HIV/AIDS, regardless of their disability, to receive public services. Because of Ginny's efforts, fundamental fairness and accessibility have been secured for a generation of people with HIV/AIDS. Ginny devoted thousands of hours to litigating Henrietta D., and, with its successful conclusion, won a substantial award of attorney's fees. Recently, Ginny donated $240,000 of these fees to the Keith Cylar Activist Fund, becoming the Fund's largest single contributor.