The IAS Educational Fund organizes country and regional meetings that place the latest science presented at international conferences into local contexts. Since 2016, the Educational Fund has convened 50 meetings, mostly in low- and middle-income countries, for health and social service providers, researchers, policy makers and key community actors. Meet a participant and hear about how attending affected them personally and informed their work in the HIV response.
“This meeting provided a platform for key populations’ needs to be integrated into the agenda and also have a presence at the meeting – because community is at the heart of the science and the HIV response.”
Kevin Mendez, Gender and Community Advocate and Consultant, Belize
Meetings in Brazil (2023) and Trinidad and Tobago (2024)
The IAS Educational Fund meetings in Rio de Janeiro in 2023 and Port of Spain in 2024 were transformative, insightful and groundbreaking. Community and community building is vital for the sustainability of the HIV response, and the IAS is an excellent enabler of it. The connections made with community leaders and the breakthroughs in medicine and research like PrEP, HIVST and long acting-ART encouraged me – as an advocate and community mobilizer – to have inclusive and up-to-date discussions and be better informed about what to advocate for and how to better meet the needs of key populations. In Rio de Janeiro, I made a special connection with a representative of the dating application, Grindr, to explore the use of its Grindr4Equality programme to have targeted messages for men who have sex with men that promote human rights, equality and harm reduction practices.
I also enjoyed the opportunity to contribute to organizing the IAS Educational Fund meeting for the Caribbean region. This provided a platform for key populations’ needs to be integrated into the agenda and also have a presence at the meeting – because community is at the heart of the science and the HIV response. I look forward to continuing to support the IAS in whichever way possible for impactful and community-responsive events.
Back in Belize, I was eager to put opportunities into action. I coordinated meetings with Grindr, Belize’s HIV country team and the Global Fund representatives to explore targeted messages for men who have sex with men. A partnership between Grindr, the National AIDS Commission of Belize and the community is in development for a six-month pilot project to distribute HIV healthcare, human rights and political participation messages to the community of men who have sex with men and connect them to existing HIV health services like PrEP, PEP and HIV self-testing (HIVST) and mental health support. Learnings from the Educational Fund meetings also help me and my colleagues in the technical working groups find the best approaches for HIVST and PrEP programmes. Belize is updating its HIVST policy and PrEP distribution strategies, and it is my intention to ensure that they are people centred and that key populations can access these services.