Our Mission

Mission

The Rural AIDS Action Network (RAAN) is a nonprofit, community-based organization whose mission is to /organize, develop and sustain caring communities of professionals and volunteers that serve and support persons living with, affected by, or at risk for HIV/AIDS in the rural Midwest.

Vision

RAAN envisions rural communities where persons living with or affected by HIV/AIDS live dignified lives and receive appropriate and compassionate medical care, and where citizens understand the realities of transmission and prevention.

Core Values

We value the security created by compassion, confidentiality, and companionship; we champion the subsequent sense of safety which, replacing isolation with community, allows openness and growth, and nourishes the human spirit.

We value acceptance, inclusiveness, equality: we encourage empathetic involvement based on respect for others, and we embrace all that we can learn and achieve from our diversity.

We value each of our volunteers; we honor their hard work, their generosity, and their rural sensibilities -- the importance of community, family, friendship.

We value all support systems -- material and spiritual, volunteer and professional -- that actively promote dignity, autonomy, and choice, and we believe that such support should be readily accessible to persons living in rural areas.

We value every educational effort, formal or informal, which combats denial, fear, stigma and bigotry, and which promotes awareness, communication, understanding, and respect.

We value the dedication of communities of faith, and we celebrate the courage of rural churches, who have taken a leading role in supporting those affected by HIV/AIDS. We abhor the use of religion as a means of cultivating intolerance.

We value the dynamism and insight of grassroots movements, and our shared commitment to the democratization of service and support through networking, collaboration, cooperation.