Canada's Report on HIV/AIDS - 1999

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Community In The Fight Against HIV/AIDS

• Community development and support to national ngos
• Legal, ethical and human rights

NGOs and community groups are responsible for much of the progress made in reducing the spread of HIV and in caring for and supporting infected individuals. Government support helps to build and maintain this nation-wide network.

Community Development And Support To National NGOs

Community-based organizations are the Strategy's best example of flexibility in action. These groups are on the front lines of the epidemic, moving swiftly to develop breakthrough projects that target prevention efforts and improve conditions for people living with HIV/AIDS.

If community development is the cornerstone of an effective response to HIV/AIDS, then the AIDS Community Action Program (ACAP) is the touchstone. Over 140 community-based organizations have been funded by ACAP this year. ACAP funding is helping to address social barriers and improve health conditions for people living with HIV/AIDS and to support prevention initiatives.

For example, by creating a safe meeting space for youth, the AIDS Committee of Sudbury (ACCESS) project "ACCESS Safer Spaces" draws community partners together to offer youth support groups, distribute condoms and safer sex information and make referrals for anonymous testing, counselling, legal and health services and hepatitis B vaccinations.

The Canadian AIDS Society project "Empowering Youth to Confront AIDS" will focus on programming for youth who are outside of the mainstream population. The project is developing and producing three-day training workshops that will travel to five regions across Canada in support of youth-driven HIV prevention programs.

The West Kootenay/Boundary AIDS Network, Outreach & Support Society (ANKORS) provides service to 16 communities in geographically remote and isolated rural areas of British Columbia. To help address the isolation that compounds the difficulties of living with HIV/AIDS, ANKORS assists community members in providing responsive support, care and current HIV/AIDS resource information as well as HIV prevention messages.

It is the sharing of HIV/AIDS-related knowledge that is indispensable to the community-based response. Maintaining an open dialogue among all people affected by HIV/AIDS is a key factor in the success of the Strategy. The "Second Canadian HIV/AIDS Skills Building Symposium: Sharing our Successes" brought together over 800 people participating in a broad range of workshops to improve skills and networks. Organized by the Canadian AIDS Society, the symposium was a hallmark of partnership building. It included workshops to improve skills, develop resources and build awareness of public policy and legal/ethical issues, and to address Canada's global response to AIDS

April, a former IDU living with AIDS, addresses the need for understanding in "Meeting the Challenge," an educational video created for health care workers: "I'd like to be treated by the health care system as a human being with feelings . a valuable human being with feelings."

Legal, Ethical And Human Rights

Striking a balance in HIV/AIDS legal and ethical issues for people living with HIV/AIDS is a vital component of the Strategy. Discrimination in law, policy or action may support the conditions that lead to HIV infection. Improved treatments mean infected people live longer and integrate more fully into everyday life, where fear, stigma and discrimination continue to be a major challenge.

Recent Strategy initiatives will help ensure that the human rights of people living with HIV/AIDS are safeguarded. Emerging and ongoing concerns such as testing and confidentiality, euthanasia, prostitution and prison health care continue to be examined. Policies in support of return-to-work strategies are also being reviewed.

Ethno-cultural communities affected by HIV/AIDS pose distinct ethical and legal challenges. A study of East and Southeast Asian-Canadians living with HIV/AIDS, by Asian Community AIDS Services (ACAS), is exploring complex questions ranging from treatment access and sexual orientation to systemic barriers related to adaptation and integration. The pervasive individual losses due to AIDS are all-encompassing in specific ethno-cultural environments; they have a debilitating impact on the psychological health of communities. By examining individual struggles, the Strategy addresses the diversity of human experience among people living with HIV/AIDS.

The intention behind such initiatives is clear - to end discrimination and prevent legal, ethical and human rights violations against vulnerable populations.

The Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network has provided a compendium of legal concerns to be addressed through 2003 in the planning report Legal, Ethical, and Human Rights Issues Raised by HIV/AIDS. The report serves to educate about and promote policy and legal responses to HIV/AIDS.

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