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PERNESSA C. SEELE FOUNDER AND CEO OF THE BALM IN GILEAD, INC. NAMED AS ONE OF THIRTY FIVE MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMEN BY ESSENCE MAGAZINE
ESSENCE
May 2005

During the celebration of its 35th anniversary, Essence Magazine, the premiere magazine for African American women, named 35 of their "most beautiful women in the world." The May issue -on newsstands now-features such women as Iman, Halle Berry, Angela Bassett, Alicia Keys and Queen Latifah. Essence's list also includes a Nobel Peace Laureate, a poet, a college president, politicians and women whose names you might not hear everyday, but whose work impacts the lives of women around the world such as Pernessa C. Seele, founder and CEO, The Balm In Gilead.

"These women exemplify the ways Essence has defined what it means to be a beautiful Black woman: spirited and spiritual," said Susan L. Taylor, Essence Editorial Director. "Witness the rich variety of women whose beauty mirrors the depth of your own," she adds of this month's May issue. "When I was 17 years old, I embraced my first Essence Magazine at Clark College in Atlanta, Ga.," said Seele. "I would look through my Essence Magazine in total amazement that women who looked just like me could be so beautiful, spiritual, powerful and embracing! Silently, I always dreamed that maybe one day I could be in Essence magazine. Of course, I did not know how it could ever happen to me." Pernessa C. Seele grew up in Lincolnville, South Carolina; an all Black town 20 miles from Charleston. After receiving a Master of Science degree from Clark Atlanta University, she relocated to New York to work as a researcher at Rockefeller University. After years in medical research, she decided to move into the AIDS arena by becoming one of the first AIDS educators hired by the City of New York to develop educational programs to address this new disease that was beginning to grip the African American community.

At Harlem Hospital, Seele was shocked to face the realities of so many women, men and babies in the hospital with no apparent visits from family members, pastors or church members.THIRTY FIVE MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMEN BY ESSENCE MAGAZINE "This was painful to me because the Harlem community is rich not only in culture, but there is a house of worship on every corner." Seele's rich spiritual experiences in the South supported her idea of how to encourage Harlem's pastors, Imams and spiritual advisors to pray, educate their congregations, and provide compassionate support to persons infected and affected by HIV/AIDS. Her idea was the Harlem Week of Prayer for the Healing of AIDS. Upon receiving national attention, Seele's Harlem-based idea was expanded into The Black Church Week of Prayer for the Healing of AIDS, a national program, now in its 16th year with an outreach of over 15,000 and considered the largest AIDS awareness campaign targeting the African American faith community. Seele established The Balm In Gilead as an organization to support the successful mobilization of African American churches to address HIV/AIDS.

"Prayer is my birthright. I always knew the miraculous power of 'prayer changes things'. I had no idea that a little idea that God placed in my heart in1989 would make my dream of being in Essence Magazine come true," states Seele.

The Balm In Gilead is a not-for-profit, non-governmental organization with an international mission to address health disparities, specifically HIV/AIDS and cervical cancer, as experienced by people of the African Diaspora. In HIV/AIDS, the organization's strategy is to build the capacity of faith communities to provide services, education and support networks for all people living with and affected by HIV/AIDS. The Balm In Gilead's pioneering achievements have enabled thousands of faith institutions globally, including those within the African American community, Cote d' Ivoire, Nigeria, Kenya and Tanzania to become leaders in HIV prevention, treatment and care. In April 2005, the organization forged an unprecedented partnership with the national women's missionary societies of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church and the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church to provide education and services related to HIV/AIDS and cervical cancer.