Gilead Sciences, Inc. and the International AIDS Society (IAS) have renewed their Me and My Healthcare Provider partnership to expand the campaign in Brazil, Hong Kong, Mexico, South Korea and Taiwan.
The collaborative partnership, now entering its second year, offers an opportunity for people affected by HIV to celebrate the contributions of healthcare professionals who have made a difference in their lives.
According to the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), discrimination in healthcare settings is one of the major obstacles to ending the AIDS epidemic as a public health threat by 2030.
Launched in 2015, the Me and My Healthcare Provider campaign recognizes healthcare workers who deliver quality HIV prevention, treatment and care in the face of discriminatory laws and stigmatizing traditions and belief systems.
The campaign aims to build a better understanding of what motivates Healthcare Provider Champions to provide inclusive and stigma-free services, further illuminating information-based and skills-building strategies adopted in local healthcare settings to enable inclusive care. By highlighting their stories, the campaign ultimately hopes to encourage replication and empower other healthcare providers to raise their voices against stigma.
This year, the campaign is expanding to include a USD 20,000 seed grant to organisations based in Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan. This will support the co-design and implementation of a local campaign, as well as work with the 2023 Healthcare Champion pairs to enhance training activities for healthcare workers to promote stigma-free service delivery in their communities. Find out more here; proposals are welcomed now until 25 November 2022.
Champions and their nominators will be announced at IAS 2023, the 12th IAS Conference on HIV Science, in Brisbane, Australia, where they will also be invited to attend a broad range of stigma-related events to share their best practice examples.
Find out more about Me and My Healthcare Provider here.
Images: Me and My Healthcare Provider, Envato