Condom Information Session

posted: 11/05/2011

We have a hands on Information Session for National Condom Week on Tuesday 24 May, starting at 12 noon.  National condom week begins on 16th May, and our Information Session gives you a down to earth and practical approach to enjoy using condoms, coupled with the facts.

While condom makers, sexual health clinics and others run web, newspaper, TV and radio campaigns encouraging people to use condoms, we're helping you get the very best out of them.

Dunkan MacLean, Service Adviser, will be leading the session at George House Trust starting at 12 noon on Tuesday 24th May (the Information Session finishes at 2.30pm).

Find out

• techniques for using condoms correctly
• recent technical advances in condom design
• talk about which condoms might be right for you
• have a frank and open discussion about using condoms.

This Condom Information Session is the first of the new regular information sessions we will run every 4th Tuesday of each month. The future Information Sessions are listed below.

Free condom goodies for all

Everyone who attends will have the opportunity to take a good bag of the various condom types available.

If you have any questions about this session please contact Dunkan MacLean 0161 274 4499 or email him

Future Information Sessions 12 noon - 2.30pm

• Keeping Fit with HIV - Wednesday 28 June
• Having a Negative Baby - Wednesday 26 July
• Assertiveness and Confidence - Wednesday 23 August
• Treatment Update - Wednesday 27 September
• Nutrition - Wednesday 25 October
• Relaxation - Wednesday 22 November
• No Information Session before Christmas in December
• Hepatitis C - Wednesday 24 January 2012
• Stopping Smoking - Wednesday 28 February 2012
• Alcohol - Wednesday 27 March 2012

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Catholic HIV Guide

posted: 07/02/2011

The Vatican will hold an international conference in May on HIV prevention and care, after all the confusion the Pope caused last year about using condoms for HIV prevention.

The conference findings will help create a guide that the Vatican is preparing on the prevention and care of AIDS patients.

The Vatican's Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers also announced that they are working on a set of guidelines for Catholic doctors, nurses and others who care for people with HIV.

More information 

Catholic bio-ethics guide for healthcare workers
Rome HIV conference
 

Pope - Use Condoms with HIV

posted: 24/11/2010

The Vatican is now saying Catholics with HIV should use condoms. Trying to end the confusion at the weekend over words in a book of interviews with the pope, his spokesman made clear that using condoms is acceptable, a ‘lesser evil,’ where there was risk of HIV transmission.
 

Across Africa and the world, reaction to the statement showed the division of opinion within the Catholic church. Church conservative hardliners now have a doctrinal dilemma – do they push the pope’s anti-condoms opinions of last year, or what he says now?
 

African Hardliner: no condoms
Matthew Ndagosa, archbishop for the Kaduna diocese in Nigeria, with its huge numbers of Catholics said: "Everybody is misinterpreting the Vatican. People have made up their own minds on this issue and are twisting the words to fit them. Holy father's message was clear – there is no change in policy. The church will continue to believe that the indiscriminate use of condoms encourages promiscuity and aggravates the situation."

African Archbishop: condoms ‘good for prevention’
But Boniface Lele, archbishop for the diocese of Mombasa in Kenya, where 30% of the population is Catholic, said he was pleased: He has been advocating change in church policy on condoms, to the displeasure of the Vatican. "In my diocese, I tell couples that if one or both or them are sick, they should use condoms. For prevention it is good thing."
Gabriel Dolan, an Irish priest who works among the poor in Mombasa, described the church's historic stance on condom use as "an injustice to those in danger" in countries which have a serious AIDS problem. "This news is a relief," he said. "I think it's just the beginning. Once you make a small concession like this it's like taking a brick out of the Berlin Wall."
 

Translation confusion
According to the German original and the English translation of the book, ‘Light of the World’ by journalist Peter Seewald, the pope said the use of a condom by an HIV-positive male prostitute could be a good thing, because it shows responsibility. But some people saw the Italian translation of the pope’s words and read this to mean a female prostitute. Italian nouns have a gender, like French nouns, and the word ‘prostituta’ is a feminine noun, and it is used for both male and female sex workers.
 

Popes comes condom clean
But at a press conference in the Vatican to mark the launch of the book, his spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi, explained that he had asked the pope on Sunday.
"I personally asked the pope if there was a serious, important problem in the choice of the masculine over the feminine," Lombardi said. "He told me 'no'." Lombardi said the key point was: "It's the first step of taking responsibility, of taking into consideration the risk of the life of another with whom you have a relationship … This is if you're a woman, a man, or a transsexual."
 

As several experts have noted, the book cannot alter doctrine. But Lombardi's comments show that the pope approves of condom use as a lesser evil where there was a risk of HIV transmission.

‘Evil’ condoms
The Catholic ban on the use of condoms, or any thing else for contraception remains. One of the pope's most senior officials, Cardinal Rino Fisichella, told the press conference condoms were "intrinsically an evil".
 

Pope’s words
In Seewald's book, the pope repeats his view that condoms are "not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection". But, asked whether his church is opposed in principle to their use, he gives a reply that falls well short of a straight answer.
"It of course does not regard it as a real or moral solution, but, in this or that case, there can be nonetheless, in the intention of reducing the risk of infection, a first step in a movement toward a different way, a more human way, of living sexuality."
 

Church in confusion
The shift has caught out some of his most senior officials. Asked by the website of the US-based ‘National Catholic Register’ if the pope's statement indicated that in some cases condoms were permissible, Cardinal Raymond Burke replied flatly: "No, it's not."
In the UK, Elena Curti, deputy editor of the Catholic weekly, The Tablet, welcomed the shift, saying: "[The pope] has let the genie out of the bottle. Once you do that it's very difficult to put it back in. In allowing this chink of light in – despite the careful language he uses – it does open up the debate."
 

HIV charities welcome conversion
HIV charity Terrence Higgins Trust expressed delight at the pope’s change of view. "It does represent a huge shift in terms of what the Vatican said before," said the trust's communications director, Genevieve Edwards. "His comments are sufficiently broad to allow people to interpret them as they feel they need to."
 

Anti-abortion denial
But John Smeaton, a Catholic and director of the Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child, denied that there had been any policy change. "Pope Benedict, like other Catholics, is bound by the magisterium of the church which he proclaims in Caritas in veritate," he wrote on his blog. "He's not likely to promote a change to that teaching in an interview with a journalist a year later – and he doesn't do so."
 

The popular Catholic blogger, Father Tim Finigan, acknowledged that there had been a shift, but warned: "I must offer a reaction of my own to the holy father's comments on AIDS and condoms. It would be along the lines of Sergeant Wilson in Dad's Army: 'Do you think that's wise, sir?' We know that the widespread distribution of condoms to tackle the problem of HIV/AIDS has not worked in practice." [This is plainly wrong – the scientific evidence is very strong that the widespread use of condoms is the most effective way to prevent HIV].
 

adapted from Source

Manchester Pride Raises £115,000

posted: 26/10/2010

Manchester Pride 2010 raised £115,000 for charity, bringing the total since 2003 to £895,000. This year’s total is rather less than the most Pride ever raised, which was last year: £135,000.
The £115,000 will be used to support the Lesbian and Gay Foundation’s ‘Free Condom and Lube’ scheme, the George House Trust HIV Welfare Fund, and in grants over the coming months to various lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) groups and projects across Greater Manchester.

HIV Welfare Fund 

The £115,000 will be split like this:
25% to the LGF Condom & Lube Scheme (£28,750), providing free condoms across Greater Manchester
25% to the George House Trust Welfare Fund (£28,750), supporting those living with or affected by HIV suffering financial hardship - apply here
50% to these three funds (£57,500 in total)

• Community Fast Track Fund
• Community Events Fund
• Development Fund

Jackie Crozier, festival director of Manchester Pride, said: “This is a fantastic achievement and we’re absolutely delighted with the figure. It’s a wonderful feeling to know that everyone who supported Manchester Pride 2010 has made a positive contribution to the future of the LGBT community in Greater Manchester.”

“Manchester Pride is a team effort and it wouldn’t be possible for us to stage the event we do without the help and support of so many organisations and individuals from across the city. I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere gratitude to each and every person who helped us along the way.”
 

Applying for Community and Development Fund grants

For more information on how to apply for any of the community grants available, visit Pride

Image George House Trust volunteers collecting in St Anns Square: Graeme Vaughan www.photogas.com graeme@photogas.com

HIV Prevention for Africans in England

posted: 12/10/2010

KWP in Practice is a new website and planning toolkit for meeting the HIV prevention needs of African people in England. The site combines and updates the two key documents, The knowledge, the will and the power, and the African HIV prevention handbook, which were both produced by Sigma Research for the National African HIV Prevention Programme.
 

Whether you fund HIV prevention for African people, or you plan and deliver these, the website's modular, practical, toolkit approach has something to offer.
 

Condom use briefing

The new website has a useful new detailed Briefing on condom use among African people in England.

In the Bass Line survey undertaken with more than 2,000 African people in 2008-09,

• one third (30%) of those who had used condoms said that one had slipped or broken off in the past year.
• More than one third (32%) said they would worry about what others thought of them if they carried condoms.
• One fifth (20%) said they sometimes had problems getting hold of condoms.

Condoms and Africans in England seminars
 

You can also book a place at a seminar about condom use among Africans in England, in either Leeds or London.
 

These full-day seminars are for service providers, clinical staff and commissioners who want to learn and share experiences of meeting the needs of African people regarding to male and female condoms. Sigma staff and local experts will lead a day of practical discussion and debate.

The seminars start at 10:30am and end at 16:30pm.
 

Book the Leeds condom seminar Tuesday 26 October 2010

Book the London condom seminar Wednesday 3 November 2010