ASHM happily welcomed visitors from across the world last month to Sydney for WorldPride.
This included a visit to the ASHM Sydney office by Midnight Poonkasetwattana, CEO of APCOM. Last year ASHM was honoured to work with APCOM and the Asia Pacific Transgender Network (APTN) to deliver the 1st Regional Transgender Health Masterclass held in Bangkok. This year ASHM is working on behalf of UNAIDS to develop a Chemsex Training and Toolkit for Health Workers in Cambodia, Indonesia and the Philippines. This work compliments the Chemsex manual for community developed by APCOM. We look forward to collaborating further with APCOM and APTN.
We also met with the Pacific Sexual and Gender Diversity Network (PSGDN) to discuss further areas of support required to strengthen sexual health community led services in the Pacific Islands. ASHM was also pleased to contribute to and attend the launch of the Global Equality Caucus HIV Prevention Handbook for Asia Pacific. The handbook presents best practice for legislators in HIV policy.
Thank you to AFAO and ACON for hosting the WorldPride HIV Sector Welcome Reception, which gave an opportunity for politicians and sector organisations to acknowledge the tremendous work which has gone into the HIV response both in Australia and globally over the past 4 decades.
Finally, we would like to congratulate the Australian Government on the announcement made by Senator the Hon Penny Wong on the new Inclusion and Equality Fund to support LGBTIQA+ civil society globally. ASHM looks forward to seeing the positive outcomes of both this commitment and the WorldPride event and we remains committed to supporting LGBTIQA+ health and rights in the region.
