Community organizations have been at the heart of Canada’s HIV response for decades, delivering trusted, local, community-led care and driving progress where it matters most. Now, that progress is at risk.
As part of our End the HIV Epidemic, Not HIV Funding campaign, we asked the leaders of some of Canada’s community organizations to highlight how essential community organizations have been in leading Canada’s HIV response, and why sustained government funding for community organizations is essential to maintaining our progress.
“Community-based organizations aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty. A community-based organization sends their staff to drill condom dispensers to the wall of the local gay bar. It promotes a loophole so people can get PrEP before it is funded in Canada. It springs into action with a campaign when a new or resurgent virus emerges. Who else is going to do that work?”
Jody Jollimore
Executive Director, CATIE
“Health Initiative for Men has provided 679 gay, bi, queer men and gender diverse people in BC access to PrEP in the last year, and this number continues to grow. By providing education around this important HIV prevention tool, bringing folks into our clinics, and connecting them to a clinician, we are removing barriers for our community members in obtaining PrEP, and playing a key role in Canada’s commitment to ending the HIV epidemic.”
Mark Sutherland
Interim Executive Director, Health Initiative for Men
“Community organizations turn community expertise into concrete action, while bridging the gap between communities and institutions. Grounded in lived experience and responsive to emerging needs, they play an essential role in monitoring, information-sharing, and providing expertise, while developing sustainable solutions tailored to community needs.”
Alexandre Dumont Blais
Executive Director, RÉZO
“During the 2022 mpox outbreak, Nova Scotia Health recognized HEAL NS’s expertise in communicating with gay, bi, and MSM communities by seeking our guidance to inform their mpox materials before they were made public (months after we had released our own materials). Since then, we have also been the sole partner in developing the plain-language instructions for, and are now the largest frontline distribution partner of, their award-winning NS Health STI Care Now HIV/STI home testing and self-sampling program.”
Chris Aucoin
Executive Director, Health Equity Alliance of Nova Scotia (HEAL NS)
“Newly arrived people often hesitate to turn to official health system resources, based on bad experiences in their countries of origin or fears about impacts on their status in their new country. In a community organization, they find information, a warm welcome and tools to get involved in the management of their own sexual health ”
Ken Monteith
Executive Director, COCQ-SIDA
“40+ years on, stigma and discrimination still stop people from seeking testing, treatment and ongoing care. AIDS Network of Edmonton, now HIV Edmonton, has served from a place of seeing the person, not the virus. We know the names of the past, the stories of today and we’ll be here for those diagnosed in the future.”
Catherine Broomfield
Executive Director, HIV Edmonton
“2S/LGBTQIA+ communities and organizations have been behind some of the greatest successes in Canada’s HIV response. We advocated for treatment options when there were none. We helped expand access to PrEP and new testing technologies to prevent new HIV infections. We took the message of U=U (Undetectable = Untransmittable) to communities across the country to combat stigma and discrimination. This progress did not happen by accident.”
Brook Biggin
Director of Education, Knowledge Mobilization, and Policy, CBRC
More than 100 community groups have signed our letter, asking federal ministers to End the HIV Epidemic, Not HIV Funding.
Will you do the same? It only takes one minute.
The Canadian Government must protect and fund community organizations so Canada can end the HIV epidemic.
Find out how you can spread the word at http://hivfunding.ca.
