Category: bus
Gay Businesses - HIV Prevention
posted: 18/04/2011
Gay venues and businesses, like saunas, clubs, bars, profile and other gay websites, travel agencies and hotels, can either help reduce, or may increase the numbers of HIV and sexually transmitted infections (STI) among gay, bi and other men who have sex with men (MSM).
There’s a new guide which sets out for businesses standards that will help not hinder HIV prevention called Everywhere. It comes from the University of Brighton.
Persuading gay businesses to help reduce the numbers of HIV and sexually transmitted infections (STI) needs more than persuasion skills, it needs HIV prevention organisations to have ways of selling the advantages of HIV and STI prevention to these businesses.
Sex sells, so how can HIV prevention help these businesses sell themselves? The answers and training for HIV prevention organisations are provided in a training manual to go with the prevention standards manual for gay businesses.
One part of the training manual is called ‘Incentives for MSM business to be socially responsible’ and another is about working with hostile businesses. The training manual for helping HIV prevention organisations work with gay serving businesses to reduce HIV and other STI transmissions, is the Training Workbook on Social Mediation with Gay and MSM Businesses regarding HIV/STI prevention.
Both the standards for businesses and the the training manual are the work of the Europe-wide Everywhere Consortium for HIV prevention and their website has sections for gay men’s HIV and sexual health organisations, for businesses serving gay and bi men, and for gay men a section of the website lists venues and businesses which meet these HIV and sexual health prevention standards. So far few businesses are listed as meeting these standards - in the UK there are some in London and Brighton; in France some in Paris, in Spain some in Madrid, for example.
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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’
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Travelling to Hospitals?
posted: 18/09/2009
Find out about public transport to hospitals in Greater Manchester with a new leaflet. It’s got information on choosing the right ticket for your journey, cheap tickets, checking bus times by mobile phone, where to get information on which buses will take you to hospital and advice on fares. Some people can get free travel or other help getting to hospitals. You can download the leaflet here
leaflet for your hospital
At this web page you can download leaflets for how to find your way to whichever hospital you need to go to in Greater Manchester
You can also call the Traveline 0871 200 22 33 (10p per minute from a landline)
You can get all the hospital travel leaflets in large print or on tape by telephoning 0781 200 22 33 (call cost 10p per minute from landlines). Lines are open 7am to 8pm Monday to Friday, 8am to 8pm Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays.
How can you travel for less?
If you cannot use buses because you are disabled, you may be able to claim GMPTE Travel Vouchers to help with the costs of transport.
You may qualify for travel vouchers if you are a resident in Greater Manchester and:
- you are registered blind or
- you are in receipt of DLA (Disability Living Allowance Higher Rate Mobility Component), or
- you are in receipt of Higher Rate Attendance Allowance, or
- you are in receipt of the War Pensioners Mobility Supplement
For further information contact the GMPTE passes and permits department on 0161 244 1050.
For advice on the best way to travel to hospital and for timetables for the bus services please visit you local GMPTE Travelshop situated at all Bus Stations or phone the Traveline 0871 200 22 33 (10p per minute from a landline) or the travelline website . You can also order timetables and leaflets by calling the Traveline number - Traveline 0871 200 22 33 (10p per minute from a landline).
Patients on low income may be entitled to claim back travel costs. For details ask for Leaflet HC11 from your local post office, from the Department for Work and Pensions or ask at the hospital’s Cashiers’s Office.
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Obama Changes USA HIV Policy
posted: 29/01/2009
President Obama signalled an end to globally criticised aspects of Bush era HIV policy.
On Friday the president issued an executive order repealing Bush's "Mexico City" Policy. This banned U.S.A. funding for international health groups that use their own funds to perform abortions, lobby their governments in favour of abortion rights or provide counseling about terminating pregnancies.
Obama said that he would now work with Congress to restore funding to the United Nations Population Fund to prevent HIV/AIDS, reduce poverty, and improve health care access for women and children in 154 countries.
Obama's decision was praised by women's health advocates, family planning groups and others for allowing USAID to fund programmes that offer HIV prevention and care, birth control and medical services.
End to Bush funding cuts for HIV support
Critics of Bush’s "Mexico City" policy say it meant large cuts worldwide for organisations that provide family planning services and basic health care. For example in Ethiopia and Lesotho, some non-governmental organisations are not able to offer comprehensive and integrated health services to people living with HIV.
Shalini Nataraj of the Global Fund for Women writes of one operation in Ghana that lost funding because it refused to adhere to the "Mexico City" Policy, resulting in an estimated 600,000 people losing access to HIV/AIDS prevention education, counseling and family planning services.
We will need to wait to hear about Obama's plans with Congress to restore funding for these important aspects of international HIV work.
Women harmed by ban on sex workers support
The effects of the policy have been "compounded" by a requirement in Bush's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief that organisations receiving funding must oppose commercial sex work, Nataraj writes, adding that the "reasoning behind this pledge is that by denying services or outreach to those who work as commercial sex workers, such [sex] work will be abolished and HIV will be reduced."
She writes that the "reality is otherwise, because women enter sex work for a variety of deeply entrenched socio-cultural and economic reasons that must be addressed before [commercial sex work] can be reduced. This means that organisations that work with sex workers are threatened with a loss of funding for serving those most in need of information and protection from HIV".
Bush's U.S. Global AIDS Co-ordinator sacked
In another signal of change in USA international HIV policy, the Obama government has sacked Mark Dybul, U.S. Global AIDS Co-ordinator and administrator of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. An e-mail sent on Thursday to U.S. foreign aid officials said that Dybul is "no longer serving" as PEPFAR administrator and that the Office of the Global AIDS Co-ordinator "will continue to function under the leadership of career staff until a successor is confirmed." Dybul ran PEPFAR since 2006 and Congress extended his job for 5 more years just last summer.
Source and another
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