Make Your Position Clear

posted: 21/12/2009

'Make your position clear' is the message in the new HIV awareness campaign for gay men in the central belt of Scotland.

A Glasgow ad agency was asked to create a memorable campaign that would get men to stop and think about their sexual health and behaviour. It will appear in gyms, doctors' surgeries and on public transport.
 

Talk about it

The key message 'Make your position clear', aims to show men that they "can and should be talking to each other about their own and their partner's sexual health, and making their stance clear on using condoms and lube and not risking unprotected sex".
 

The agency said the campaign presented it with "the unique challenge of translating an often highly sexual image and message for use in the public arena, promoting an overall general awareness". The campaign is for the Greater Glasgow and Clyde, Lanarkshire and Ayrshire NHS Trusts.
 

The campaign website makeyourpositionclear Position #26 the check-out is shown above. Other images in the campaign are

• Position #8 - a nude game of Twister, saying

'Whatever position you’re in, it’s a lot safer with condoms and lube. Make them your first pick up.'
 

• Position #18 is a nude take on The Titanic, with the message

'Check ups and HIV testing every 6 months help look after your long term health. Make an appointment today.'
 

What about NW England?

HIV prevalence among gay men and other men who have sex with men is far higher in Manchester, Salford and Blackpool than the central belt of Scotland. When did the NHS fund a public HIV awareness campaign for gay and bisexual men on public transport in Greater Manchester and Blackpool, for example?

Source

Commonwealth Stops HIV Funding

posted: 30/11/2009

The Commonwealth Foundation agreed to switch almost all of its entire £400,000 HIV funding from HIV to cultural activities, without consultation, in April, it has just emerged.
 

The leaders of Commonwealth countries, ending their annual meeting in Trinidad and Tobago, were last night facing dealing with the scandal. The Commonwealth has 30 per cent of the world's population but 60 per cent of the people with HIV in the world, and HIV is acknowledged as a "Commonwealth emergency". Despite this, and without public consultation, it was decided to end the only Commonwealth programme that directly tackles HIV.
 

Commonwealth HIV Network abandoned
Over the past four years, nearly £400,000 has been spent through the Commonwealth Foundation to create an international network of experts, activists and civic organisations working on HIV/AIDS. The Foundation, funded by taxpayers of the 53 member states of the Commonwealth, decided in April to switch the money from the Pan-Commonwealth HIV/AIDS Network to cultural activities. It did not tell those involved, according to confidential emails seen by The Independent.
 

A storm of protest followed behind closed doors in which the foundation was accused of "jumping ship" and its director, Mark Collins, was asked to explain the "abandonment". In an email exchange with Mr Collins in April, the Canadian scientist John W Foster, of the North-South Institute in Ottawa, wrote to express his "deep surprise and concern regarding the news that HIV/AIDS is no longer a priority of the ... foundation". Mr Foster asked for the decision to be reversed and demanded to know the rationale behind it.
 

Denial
The foundation's response to the furore was to deny any change in strategy. Mr Collins insisted yesterday that the network's funding had reached the end of a "three-year commitment". He has told the foundation's partners they can apply individually for small grants through a website. But one of the founding members of the network, Dr Robert Carr, of the International Council of Aids Service Organisations, rejected this explanation as nonsensical.
 

"When we enquired about next year's funding we were told there was to be no funding," he said.
They came to us and persuaded us to start a civil society network and then unilaterally decided they couldn't be bothered with it." Dr Carr said it made "no strategic sense" to spend time and money building up a network and then closing it down "without asking what happened and what did it achieve?". The network, designed to share expertise, lobby governments, set up education schemes and strengthen civil society has been credited with shaping national strategic plans on HIV in at least two countries.
 

Silencing the HIV programme manager
In September, confusion over the goings-on at the foundation deepened when Mr Collins abruptly suspended his own programme manager, Anisha Rajapakse, without explanation. Ms Rajapakse, who previously worked for the UN and the German government, is thought to have objected to moves to downgrade the importance of AIDS work. Attempts to contact her were unsuccessful. The foundation refused The Independent's request to speak to her and would not discuss the grounds for her suspension, insisting yesterday that the matter was "internal and confidential".
 

Simply asking why?  means cancelled invites

When members of the AIDS network, all of them recruited by Ms Rajapakse, demanded to know why she had been "silenced", several of them, including Dr Carr, were "dis-invited" from the Commonwealth People's Forum – the main civil society event in the build-up to this week's summit of Commonwealth heads of government. Lisa Williams-Lahari, an HIV and gender activist from the Pacific region, was originally invited to Trinidad by the foundation but found herself "dis-invited". The justification given was that that the forum was oversubscribed, yet the next day someone else from the same Pacific network was invited to register. "I went from an invitation, my name on a programme and preparing for my sessions in September to a wall of silence six weeks long," said Ms Lahari. "To date no one at the foundation has withdrawn their invite. They simply pretend it never happened."
 

Colonial arrogance detected in cuts and silence
James Onyango from Kenya's Aids Intervention and Prevention Project Group, said it was a scandal that members who should be working to save lives were wasting time trying to find out what was going on. "Colonialism came to an end and this arrogance shouldn't be there," he said. "The foundation is meant to work with the people to bring change."
 

Mr Collins denied any strategic shift on the Commonwealth's HIV and AIDS policy and said a meeting had been held by the forum this week. "There is no intention to lower the priority of HIV and AIDS in our programme. HIV and AIDS remains high on the list of concerns," he said in a statement from Trinidad.  

Shambolic meeting

Dr Carr, who attended the meeting, described it as "a shambles". Others, speaking anonymously after the session, said it had been "incoherent" and "inconsequential".
 

The Commonwealth and HIV

• The Commonwealth has 53 member countries
• 30 per cent of the world's population, but 60 per cent of its HIV-infected people
• 24 million HIV-positive people live in the Commonwealth
• The Commonwealth Foundation invested £387,700 to create a HIV network. Members were told to reapply to a separate fund that last year issued just £37,772.
• The Caribbean has the second-highest prevalence of HIV of any region in the world
• The pandemic is the leading cause of death among Caribbean people between 15-42
• There are 430,000 people living with HIV in the Caribbean
• In NW England 32 people were infected in the Caribbean (almost all these infections took place in Jamaica) and there are 75 people with a Caribbean ethnic background diagnosed with HIV in NW England.

Source

World AIDS Day - Lancashire

posted: 28/10/2009

World AIDS Day (1 December) is being made a red letter day across Lancashire. Here’s the events we already know about.

Pantomine and Cabaret
25 November Red Ribbon Pantomine @ Twaites Theatre Blackburn
27 November Red Ribbon Cabaret @ 53 degrees, UCLAN, Preston
Full details here

Ormskirk Clubbing
WAD 1st December
Outrageous club in Ormskirk, WAD fundraiser for CLASS (CLASS provide HIV support from Preston for people in central Lancashire)

HIV Vigil - Preston and Blackburn
WAD Vigil, 7.30pm St Johns Minster, Church Street, Preston
WAD Vigil, 7.30pm (to be confirmed) Blackburn Cathedral, Blackburn

Event
Friday 4th December, Preston FLAG Market (Market Square) Celebrating life with HIV event - we've not been told when - email Andy Thompson the LGBT community worker at SHIVER 

Schools and Colleges Awareness - Blackpool
From 6 December there’s a week of awareness in several schools as part of the 'Respect' week. There will be speakers on ‘respect’ issues such as domestic violence, homophobic bullying and sexual health.
A speaker living with HIV will give an informal talk on Friday 4 December to 6th form students who are being trained as teenage peer educators, and to the whole sixth form in the following week.

iPhone quiz prize for school and college students
lAndy Thompson, SHIVER’s LGBT worker and a colleague will give short talks on HIV at several school assemblies. A free Q&A quiz about HIV will award the winner an iPhone and is already drawing much student interest, promoted by the poster produced by the 6th form to advertise it.

Teenage peer educators The teenage peer educators are making a short film for these school assemblies which will include sound bites and clips from programmes popular with teens, such as Holyoaks which has a current Malachy and HIV storyline. 

Red Ribbons for donations will be widely available at the schools and colleges during this fortnight.

Video at Blackpool council customer centre
On a continuous display loop is a short video presentation in the Customer First Centre of Blackpool borough council; this will run for two weeks from 23rd November to 6 December.
 

This short video will also be shown in all the local LGBT venues on and around the 1st.

Mardi Gras club vigil - Blackpool
A short service and vigil will be held in the Blackpool gay club Mardi Gras on the Saturday 28 November and on Tuesday 1 December
 

Flying Handbag - Blackpool

There’s a charity all-dayer at the Flying Handbag on Sunday the 6 December to raise money for next year. £2 on the door.