PANCAP and the Caribbean Network for People Living with HIV (PLH) and AIDS are hosting a workshop to equip 50 persons living with HIV (PLH) with the skills needed “to advocate for universal access to services and to apply the principles of community competence to prevention treatment and care.”
The participants will be drawn from 16 Caribbean countries and the training funded from the Global Fund Round 9 Grant, a press release from the Caricom Secretariat said. The workshop will be held on May 21 and 22 in Trinidad and Tobago.
It is expected that participants will be integrated into their national response as advocates and service providers to get people into service. “The available evidence suggests that social and cultural barriers reflected in the legal, policy, and other arrangements, hinder acceptance and integration of PLWA and persons affected by HIV, as well as of those most vulnerable to the virus,” the release said.
According to the PCU Global Fund Strategy Officer Dereck Springer, “directly and indirectly these obstacles drive the HIV epidemic, because they restrict access to HIV services, particularly by groups that are also marginalized for other reasons, such as sex workers, gay men and other men who have sex with men, drug users, youth and migrants…..it is therefore important to continuously facilitate an enabling environment for universal access to HIV services for everyone, whoever they are and wherever they are.”
To date, more than 100 PLH have been trained via this PANCAP/CRN+/Global Fund initiative. This is the third workshop on the Caribbean HIV epidemic and the regional response for PLH, the release said.
