Ottawa – The Government of Canada is committed to working with partners and stakeholders across the country in support of the global goal of ending viral hepatitis, HIV and other sexually transmitted and blood-borne infections (STBBI) as public health threats. The contribution of community-based organizations is central to Canada’s ability to achieve these targets.
Projects funded by the HIV and Hepatitis C Community Action Fund (CAF) and Harm Reduction Fund (HRF) take an integrated approach to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of prevention initiatives for these infections, along with other sexually transmitted and blood-borne infections.
HIV and Hepatitis C Community Action Fund
Through the CAF, a total of 15 projects in British Columbia are receiving $12,099,294 in funding.
Project: A Targeted Northern BC HIV/AIDS, HCV and STBBI Strategy
Funding: $1,979,223
Location: Prince George, British Columbia
Recipient: Positive Living North: No Kheyoh t’sih’en t’sehena Society
Project Details: This project will support peer educators who will deliver a range of presentations to service providers focused on increasing the knowledge, skills and abilities around STBBI in a culturally safe and experientially informed manner.
Project: Community-based, sex worker-led HIV and Hep C services, advocacy and capacity-building
Funding: $1,373,423
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia
Recipient: Supporting Women’s Alternatives Network (SWAN Vancouver) Society ($108,618); H.I.M. Health Initiative for Men Society ($821,082); St. Paul’s Foundation of Vancouver ($443,723)
Project Details: This project will use a layered approach to address individual, institutional and structural factors that increase the occupational health and safety risks for sex workers, specifically those related to HIV and hepatitis C prevention, testing and treatment. The project will deliver sex worker-led training for healthcare professionals in order to reduce stigma and discrimination that sex workers experience in health care settings.
Project: Strengthening Capacity to Increase Effectiveness, Impact, and Sustainability
Funding: $1,243,559
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia
Recipient: Pacific AIDS Network Society
Project Details: This project aims to strengthen the skills and competencies of frontline service providers, including peer workers and peer navigators in the community organizations, through a program that will help learners gain the essential knowledge required to provide culturally safe and stigma-free prevention, testing, treatment, and care.
Project: Engage:Educate:Connect – STBBI Peer Education and Navigation Project
Funding: $1,125,177
Location: Victoria, British Columbia
Recipient: AVI Health & Community Services Society
Project Details: This project aims to address the challenges of gaps in knowledge and inadequate support for navigating testing, treatment, and prevention services among gay, bisexual, men who have sex with other men, youth, and people who use drugs. The project will provide peer navigation sessions, peer leadership training and other educational programming, including for service providers.
Project: Sexual Health Engagement for Positive, Indigenous & Trans Youth (SHEPY)
Funding: $1,043,697
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia
Recipient: YouthCo HIV & Hep C Society
Project Details: This project aims to address elevated and rising rates of STBBI among youth in key populations by creating creative opportunities for youth to get information about, and develop skills and abilities required to navigate STBBI.
Project: Innovation from Strength: the Pan-Canadian PLDI Alliance
Funding: $830,222
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia
Recipient: Pacific AIDS Network Society
Project Details: This project will deliver leadership skills and training courses to people living with HIV across Canada both in-person and online to help reduce HIV stigma in individuals and their communities. The project will improve health outcomes and engagement with linkages to care, and position people living with HIV as leaders and change-makers in Canada’s HIV response, while meaningfully addressing Truth and Reconciliation.
Project: Building capacity to prevent STBBIs in correctional facilities in BC
Funding: $824,018
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia
Recipient: The University of British Columbia
Project Details: This project will implement a peer education program in federal correctional facilities in BC to improve prevention, testing, and treatment for STBBI. The project aims to prevent new infections; share up-to-date, stigma reducing, and public health information related to HIV, hepatitis C and other STBBI; and increase testing and treatment uptake through improved knowledge.
Project: Advance Community Alliance ‘2.0’: Optimizing Combination Prevention for GBT2Q+ People
Funding: $714,285
Location: Vancouver, British, Columbia
Recipient: H.I.M. Health Initiative for Men Society
Project Details: This project aims to improve the accessibility and uptake of STBBI health services among gay, bisexual, queer, and other men who have sex with men (cis and trans), and Two-Spirit people (GBT2Q) in Canada. Key activities will include community member-led projects; regional communities of practice to better coordinate STBBI health services; and cultural competence and safety trainings with healthcare and social service providers.
Project: Real Talk
Funding: $813,334
Location: Burnaby, British Columbia; Coquitlam, British Columbia
Recipient: Burnaby Association for Community Inclusion ($440,639); Posabilities Association of British Columbia ($212,980); Kinsight Community Society ($159,715)
Project Details: Through facilitated workshops, professional development modules, and free online videos, this project increases the capacity of people from priority populations with cognitive disabilities, and the frontline staff supporting them, to engage in open conversations on sexual health topics such as STBBI, safe sex, and consent. The project aims to increase knowledge and uptake of safer sex practices, and the accessibility of sexual health resources such as hotlines and clinics.
Project: Wellness Outreach Team for Indigenous Sex Workers
Funding: $518,124
Location: Victoria, British Columbia
Recipient: Peers Victoria Resources Society
Project Details: This project aims to address the disproportionate spread of STBBI within Indigenous communities through monthly group education workshops regarding prevention, testing, and treatment, and community-based outreach.
Project: Shared Care & Peer Supports to Improve Prevention, Diagnosis, and Treatment
Funding: $506,052
Location: Penticton, British Columbia
Recipient: OneSky Community Resources Society
Project Details: The project will work with community partners to establish peer supports in a community health centre’s shared care team to improve access to prevention, testing, treatment and ongoing care and support for people living with or lived experience of HIV and/or hepatitis C. Peers are active participants in the design, delivery and evaluation of the project.
Project: HIV/HCV Community Integration Support Program
Funding: $375,000
Location: Abbottsford, Delta, and Surrey, British Columbia
Recipient: Phoenix Drug and Alcohol Recovery and Education Society
Project Details: This project will strengthen the capacity of people in, or recently released, from institutional settings to reduce transmission of STBBI through testing, peer support, educational workshops, and linking individuals to treatment and care through front-line service providers.
Project: We Can Thrive
Funding: $301,335
Location:Burnaby, British Columbia
Recipient: Afro-Canadian Positive Network of BC Society
Project Details: This project will engage racialized newcomers, immigrants, and Canadians from sub-Saharan Africa, along with service providers, community leaders, religious communities, and policy makers, to provide tailored support and education to those living with HIV, young people (age 15-29), and women (including transgender and cisgender women). The project aims to increase knowledge of HIV and hepatitis C prevention measures through peer-specific group programming, public engagement activities, and one on one support.
Project: Men’s Health Initiative (MHI) Program
Funding: $284,236
Location: Kelowna, British Columbia
Recipient: Living Positive Resource Centre, Okanagan
Project Details: This project will increase healthy connections and develop appropriate community resources and initiatives for queer men and men who have sex with other men throughout the BC Region. The project aims to provide holistic services that improve mental, physical, and emotional health, as well as addressing and reducing the barriers that exists for queer men.
Project: Rainbow of Care: Culturally Safe STBBI Prevention for LGBTQ Newcomers
Funding: $167,609
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia
Recipient: Rainbow Refugee Society
Project Details: This national project implements a peer-support framework to connect LGBTQI+ refugees and newcomers to sexual health services, programs, and wellness initiatives.
Harm Reduction Fund
Through the HRF, a total of 1 project in British Columbia is receiving $536,739 in funding.
Project: Awakening Our Strength: A Harm Reduction Outreach Program
Funding: $536,739
Location: Prince George, British Columbia
Recipient: Positive Living North: No Kheyoh t’sih’en t’sehena Society
Project Details: This project will mobilize peer educators to provide knowledge and capacity to key populations and target audiences on the transmission of STBBI related to substance-use behaviours using a harm-reduction approach. Stigma represents a large barrier to care, which is due largely to a lack of culturally-safe and experiential-informed education for service providers. A greater trend emerging in this specific avenue of training is the involvement of those with lived experience in educational facilitation to provide context from a first-hand perspective. Utilizing PLN’s established network, They will also deliver a range of workshops and presentations to Indigenous communities both on and off reserve to help key populations increase their knowledge, skills and abilities to prevent STBBIs.