Marion D. Banzhaf
Revson Fellow 2000-2001
Administrator
Sonya Staff Foundation
Marion Banzhaf is currently Administrator of the Sonya Staff Foundation, a small progressive foundation. Born in Orlando, Florida, Ms. Banzhaf, after 15 years of work in the women’s health and reproductive rights movements, has been a leader in the activism and service provision in the areas of HIV/AIDS and women for over a decade–beginning in the mid-eighties as an organizer of safer-sex teach-ins and health awareness publications. She organized the Women’s Committee of ACT UP and, in 1990, became the Coordinator of the New Jersey Women and AIDS Network, the first statewide women and AIDS organization.
At NJWAN, Ms. Banzhaf developed and implemented innovative programs to improve service provision to women of color and to train women with HIV to become phone counselors for other women. Both programs have been duplicated in other parts of the United States.
She organized the first educational program on needle exchange in New Jersey and coordinated five annual conferences on women and HIV. Returning to New York in 1996, Ms. Bazhaf has recently completed her coursework for a Bachelor’s degree at Empire State College of SUNY while working as a consultant for the Ms. Foundation, coordinating the Women and AIDS Fund, the Innovative Health Care Models program, and the Welfare Reform Initiative of the Reproductive Rights Coalition and Organizing Fund.
During her year as a Revson Fellow, Ms. Banzhaf intends to study at the School of Public Health and the Center for the Study of Society and Medicine, focusing on the question of how lay people can better influence the health care system, especially in regard to issues of race and class, community involvement and control, and other ethical and political controversies in public health.
(The Revson Fellow’s biography that appears above was last updated in 2000. Revson Fellows may update their biographies on this site by sending email to: revson@columbia.edu)
The program helped not only by enhancing my skills as an advocate, but also by plugging me into a dynamic community for social change. Sitting on the Revson selection committee, I have had a unique perspective. I know the incredible quality of the people applying to be Revsons and what they are contributing to the city. A generation of activists has been refreshed and energized and sharpened by the Program.
