Election Priorities of Africans?

posted: 09/04/2010

Africans living with HIV are asked by the African HIV Policy Network (AHPN) for their ten most important HIV and sexual health issues for the Government, after the general election.
 

There are around 25,000 Africans with HIV in the UK. These Africans’ friends, families and communities are all affected too. After the election there will be major cuts in public spending which will affect health and other services.
 

Make your voice heard
Africans affected by HIV can influence the next Government's policies for the health and wellbeing of African communities.
Please add your top ten asks to this online survey.
 

The African HIV Policy Network will summarise the top '10 big asks' and pass these to existing and potential parliamentarians, community based organisations, policy makers and other stakeholders.

Are you registered to vote?
To vote in the UK general election on 6 May, you need to be registered to vote, before 20 April. 

Many Commonwealth citizens, including people seeking asylum, can register and vote.

We tell you more here.

Sustaining African Community Leadership

posted: 14/01/2010

Sustaining Community Leadership is the theme of the latest issue of the African HIV Policy Network’s Newsletter. It has pieces on

• surviving the economic downturn
• the importance of Africans and others making their voice heard by voting in the general and local elections (which will almost certainly be on May 6th)
• HIV positive people being leaders and making a community impact
• Africans disappearing from HIV clinics (by Chris Morley, George House Trust’s policy expert)
• Resources and working to improve Faith responses to HIV, (they have more information on their website)
• HIV and the workplace – meeting the needs of staff with HIV
• Their media toolkit for working with journalists – details and download it from their website
• Young people using the web and mobile phones for HIV messages
• Fighting HIV stigma
• Using SHoutloud to have your say about your local HIV and sexual health services.

This Sustaining Community Leadership issue

 Past issues of AHPN's newsletters

Talk with MPs About Testing

posted: 15/05/2009

MPs are to be lobbied to push for more HIV testing in the HIV hotspots of the country. We are looking for people from Manchester, Salford and Blackpool, to go to London and lobby their MP about HIV testing.

On Wednesday 24 June 2009, Terrence Higgins Trust [THT], with NAT [National AIDS Trust] and the All Party Group on HIV/AIDS, is meeting at the House of Commons to encourage more HIV testing in the HIV hotspots. Manchester, Salford and Blackpool are the only HIV hotspots in the North of England.
 

People living in the 34 Primary Care Trust areas with the most HIV in England will meet with the MPs and PCT staff from their area.
 

Want to talk with your MP about testing?

Do you want to talk to your MPs about increasing HIV testing by GPs and in the community, and how to do this?
 

THT is looking for one person from these 10 Northern constituencies. You can easily find out which is your constituency and MP if you enter your postcode. 

Manchester

•  Blackley (Graham Stringer)
•  Central (Tony Lloyd)
•  Wythenshawe and Sale East (Paul Goggins)
•  Manchester, Withington (John Leech)
•  Manchester, Gorton (Gerald Kaufman)

Salford

•  Salford (Hazel Blears)
•  Eccles (Ian Stewart)
•  Worsley (Barbara Keeley)

Blackpool

•  Blackpool South (Gordon Marsden)
•  Blackpool North & Fleetwood (Joan Humble)

You must be

• able to travel to central London for a lunchtime meeting on Wednesday 24 June, eg train departing Manchester 08.55, or from Blackpool at 08.20, and
• willing to discuss HIV and testing options with your MP, and
• on the electoral roll for that constituency.

THT will provide you with a fact sheet to help you.
 

Expenses

Travel from Manchester and Blackpool by train at peaktime costs around £250 unless you book well in advance. THT will pay travel costs, and lunch is provided at the House of Commons.

George House Trust can book flexible saver tickets for you at about £65 (because we are a charity) for these peak trains.
 

Interested?

If you are interested in taking part, please email Sophie Robinson or call her on 020 7812 1634.
 

Please tell her

- the name of any HIV or sexual health organisation you use (eg George House Trust) and
- which constituency you live in.

If you need more information, please contact Sophie Robinson at Terrence Higgins Trust by calling 020 7812 1634 or email

Human Rights, Gender and HIV

posted: 05/05/2009

Human Rights, Gender and HIV  is the latest Newsletter from African HIV Policy Network. It gives a rounded view of the effects of gender imbalance on the rights of people living with HIV.

This edition looks at the impacts of gender imbalance on young people, men and women, and it talks about how to reduce gender imbalance and uphold human rights, for all.

What's it all about?

• Gender based violence and sexual health - when culture violates health and rights
• GIPA, gender, women and HIV: Between principle and practice
• Faith, HIV and Gender - a perspective
• HIV, Gender and Sexuality
• Which way to my identity?
• Living with HIV as a young person
• Do it Right - a human right
• Engaging men as partners in HIV prevention
• Microbicides: a hope for negotiating safer sex
• Sexual and reproductive health rights of women living with HIV
• Resources

Human Rights, Gender and HIV issue of the African HIV Policy Network newsletter.

Obama - Drugs Harm Reduction

posted: 17/03/2009

The Obama administration signalled today that it was ready to repudiate the prohibition and "war on drugs" approach of previous presidents, and steer policy towards prevention and "harm reduction" strategies favoured by Europe.

David Johnson, an assistant secretary of state, said the new administration would embrace policies supporting federally funded needle exchanges. The aim, he said, was to establish a policy based on public health needs. "This will result in a policy that is broader and stronger than the one we had in the past," Johnson said on the sidelines of a UN drug strategy conference in Vienna.

Last minute change for UN drugs conference

The UN international drug strategy conference meets every ten years to agree the international drugs strategy. It has been deadlocked. Europe is leading calls for harm reduction measures, such as needle exchanges and methadone, to help manage injecting drug use and reduce the risk of HIV and hepatitis C tranmsission, while the USA has stuck with the former USA "war on drugs" rhetoric and outright hostility to the pragmatic harm reduction approach. Now the USA seems to be swinging towards European policy, at the last minute.

His words come days after his nomination of the Seattle police chief, Gil Kerlikowske, to the post of director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, the nation's drug czar. Kerlikowske has built a reputation in Seattle for pursuing drug policies based on harm reduction. The state has an established needle exchange programme, has legalised marijuana for medicinal purposes and has made marijuana among the lowest priorities for law enforcement.

Congress calls for drugs policy change

In a further sign of a new approach in Washington, congressional committee hearings last week heard lawmakers argue for a shift in national drug policy, largely in response to the rising drug-related violence seeping into the US from Mexico.

Those hearings followed a report by the former presidents of Mexico, Colombia and Brazil, which dubbed the war on drugs a "complete failure". Ernesto Zedillo, César Gaviria and Henrique Cardoso, all conservative politicians, blamed the US emphasis on criminalisation for the continuing toll caused by drug trafficking, and called for an approach based on public health, including the legalisation of marijuana.

Change came the top

Johnson said the latest shift came as a result of a direct instruction from the new administration. "There was very much an official directive from Washington," he told Reuters. "There was no confusion whatsoever. The [switch on] needle exchange was the clear signal of that."

Ethan Nadelmann, the executive director of the Drugs Policy Alliance, which lobbies for alternatives to the war on drugs, welcomed the change.

Public health comes before politics

"These statements really indicate a significant shift," he said. "It's not just a repudiation of the Bush administration, it's a repudiation of the Clinton administration. This signals a new direction in US drug policy. This is about all the leading scientists and all the public health people pushing in the same direction and Obama saying he's putting science above politics."

In a statement last week announcing the nomination of the new drug czar, Obama said: "With escalating violence along our Southwest border and far too many suffering from addiction here at home, never has it been more important to have a national drug control strategy guided by sound principles of public safety and public health."

Kerlikowske faces bruising confirmation hearings in the Senate. After his name was floated for the position, it emerged his stepson has been arrested several times on drug-related charges. Kerlikowske alluded to this at the announcement of his nomination. "Our nation's drug problem is one of human suffering," he said, "and as a police officer, but also in my own family, I have experienced the effects that drugs can have on our youth, our families and our communities."
 

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