Domestic Abuse Attitudes

posted: 15/11/2010

Domestic abuse harms many people as well as wider society. People living with HIV are affected by domestic violence as much as any other people in society. The Greater Manchester domestic abuse organisation, Independent Choices, wants people’s views about domestic abuse problems and what services are needed.

The survey asks just nine questions and takes just 5 minutes. Join the survey here.
 

Please share the survey

Please circulate this to people you know in Greater Manchester, because they want as many people answering the survey as possible.
 

Findings

The survey results will be published and help develop and support high quality domestic violence support services for Greater Manchester region into 2011.
 

Copies of the finished report will be available by searching their website in January 2011.

Questions?

Questions about the survey to the research student, with the email heading ‘Research’  

 

Proud to Halt HIV Child Deportations

posted: 30/04/2010

It was New Year's Day 2008 when Martin Narey, head of the children’s charity Barnardo’s, opened the letter he had been waiting for. Inside were the names of 63 HIV-positive children and their families who had at last received a reprieve from the British Government. They no longer faced deportation back to Malawi and Rwanda, to an almost certain death.
 

In a candid interview before he steps down as chief executive of the children's charity Barnardo's, Mr Narey told The Independent that the letter was the proudest moment of his professional life.
The 54-year-old former head of the prison service had fought long and hard to keep the children in this country, lobbying Tony Blair to argue that it would be "cruel and inhumane" to return them to die when anti-retroviral treatment in the UK could give them a near normal life expectancy.
 

Behind the scenes
George House Trust and the Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit work closely with Barnardo’s Gregory’s Place to support HIV positive children and their families in NW England remain in the UK. He came to Barnardo's met families and staff from both organisations. We all fed him the facts and harsh realities facing HIV positive migrant children and their families.

Martin Narey instantly grasped the inhumanity of deporting HIV positive children to an early death. He used his unrivalled access to people in power and his passionate commitment to justice and care for children to win protection from removal for 63 children with HIV.
 

Manchester visit sparked action
"On a visit to one of our services in Manchester I met Josephine, a mum whose appeal against a decision not to grant her asylum had just been rejected. Josephine and her son Michael, then 14, were about to be deported to Malawi," he said. George House Trust and the Immigration Aid Unit had given expert evidence and pleaded the family’s case at the immigration tribunal.
 

"Both Josephine and her son were HIV positive. The clinical evidence I was subsequently able to read indicated that without anti-retroviral treatment in Malawi, both would die within months, whereas Josephine's life expectancy here was considerable and Michael's was essentially that of any other 14-year-old. What most shocked, upset and moved me about Josephine was not her quiet acceptance about her own death, but her abject fear over the reality that because she had a radically lower blood count she would die first and leave Michael to die on his own a few weeks or months after her.”
 

Take it to the top
"I went straight from there to the Labour conference in Manchester where I was speaking in a Fabian Debate and I spoke very frankly about what I'd seen. That got me in front of the All Party Parliamentary Group on HIV. That got questions asked at PM's Questions. That got me a meeting with Tony Blair and eventually – and to his enormous credit – a list of more than 60 children, all HIV positive, and their families were given indefinite leave to remain.
 

"The reprieve list, which was sent to me on New Year's Eve and I opened on New Year's Day 2008, was, and I suspect always will be, the best moment of my professional life."
 

Source
 

Wanted - Positive Youth Camp Leaders

posted: 23/04/2010

Are you HIV+? Are you aged 18 - 24 on August 23 2010? Want to help run the first ever UK summer camp for HIV+ young people?

CHIVA (Childrens HIV Association) is recruiting fifteen Camp Leaders to help run the first ever CHIVA Summer Camp for HIV+ children and young people, in the last week of August 2010.

Along with staff and volunteers, Camp Leaders will help to run the Summer Camp. They will offer support to participants, organise events and activities and keep the camp running smoothly.

Training and Expenses Included
All Camp Leaders will need to attend a four day training session from Thursday 10th - Monday 14th June 2010. Alongside fun activities, Camp Leaders will receive accredited training from Youthforce on the 'Essentials of working with young people'. All expenses will be paid.

Over 25? - volunteer instead
If you are HIV+ and aged 25 or over in late August, consider becoming a CHIVA camp volunteer instead. Visit the Summer Camp webpage and download volunteering details and an application form - righthand column of web page.

Becoming a Camp Leader - apply before 30 April
For more information download the information pack and application form. The application form must be completed and returned by 5pm April 30 2010.

If you know or work with HIV+ young people please print off the advert about becoming a Camp Leader and pass this on to them.

If you would like any more information about being a Camp Leader please email Tom Burke.
 

Asylum Detention Challenges

posted: 23/03/2010

The harsh treatment faced by detained women and children seeking asylum - including women and children with HIV - who are held at Yarl’s Wood will now be closely considered by both the High Court and the British Medical Association.
 

Three Human Rights Abused
"Lawyers have been granted permission to challenge the government's detention policy, which they claim amounts to "cruel, inhumane and degrading" treatment of women and children.

The High Court has given the go-ahead for a judicial review of the cases of four women held at the Yarl’s Wood detention centre after lawyers claimed their treatment breaches articles three, five and eight of the European convention on human rights. This comes very soon after many women have ended a 5 week hunger strike in protest at the conditions and their treatment.

Jim Duffy, a solicitor at Public Interest Lawyers, which is bringing the case, welcomed the decision. "The case confronts the policy and practice of the Home Office and the private company running Yarls Wood, Serco."
 

Three Yarl's Wood doctors investigated
Three doctors working at Yarl's Wood immigration detention centre are facing investigation by the General Medical Council, amid calls for healthcare at the centre to be transferred from the private sector to the NHS. Alistair Burt, Tory MP for North East Bedfordshire, (containing Yarl’s Wood) described healthcare as the weak link and that this weakness can only be ended by transferring healthcare to the NHS.
 

As he points out: "If there is an issue over fitness to travel and the decision is made by a contracted company inside Yarl's Wood, what chance is there of having confidence that it has not been influenced by the contract given to the contractors to get people out of the country?"

More details from Medical Justice 1 and Medical Justice 2 and Medical Justice 3
 
 

Wanted - Positive Youth Camp Leaders

posted: 18/03/2010

Are you HIV+? Are you aged 18 - 24 on August 23 2010? Want to help run the first ever UK summer camp for HIV+ young people?

CHIVA (Childrens HIV Association) is recruiting fifteen Camp Leaders to help run the first ever CHIVA Summer Camp for HIV+ children and young people, in the last week of August 2010.

Along with staff and volunteers, Camp Leaders will help to run the Summer Camp. They will offer support to participants, organise events and activities and keep the camp running smoothly.

Training and Expenses Included
All Camp Leaders will need to attend a four day training session from Thursday 10th - Monday 14th June 2010. Alongside fun activities, Camp Leaders will receive accredited training from Youthforce on the 'Essentials of working with young people'. All expenses will be paid.

 

Over 25? - volunteer instead

If you are HIV+ and aged 25 or over in late August, consider becoming a CHIVA camp volunteer instead. Visit the Summer Camp webpage and download volunteering details and an application form - righthand column of web page.
 

Becoming a Camp Leader - apply before 30 April

For more information download the information pack and application form. The application form must be completed and returned by 5pm April 30 2010.

If you know or work with HIV+ young people please print off the advert about becoming a Camp Leader and pass this on to them.

If you would like any more information about being a Camp Leader please email Tom Burke.