IN Community: Watch Video Series For CANFAR’s Latest Awareness Campaign

Canadian Foundation for AIDS Research highlights diverse voices and aims to reengage Canadians in the fight against HIV…

By Jumol Royes 

World AIDS Day has passed, but the conversation around HIV continues.

Global Lessons, Local Action is the name of latest awareness campaign from the Canadian Foundation for AIDS Research (CANFAR) promoting the importance of acting swiftly to effectively put an end to HIV in Canada. 

Timed to coincide with World AIDS Day and supported by CANFAR’s recent signature fundraising event, Bloor Street Entertains, the campaign connects global topics and lessons learned with local initiatives in the fight against HIV. 

CANFAR partnered with the Canadian Association for Global Health (CAGH) and Gilead Sciences to produce a series of shareable videos as part of the campaign with the participation of CANFAR ambassadors and representatives from the Canada Pavilion at the International AIDS Conference that took place in Montreal earlier this year.

10 video stories were created featuring: Martin Morberg, Jade Elektra, Maureen Owino, Ashley Rose Murphy, Christian Hui, Gabriel Jarquin, Claudette Cardinal, Harvey Michele, Trevor Stratton and Muluba Habanyama. 

The videos are being shared by CANFAR, CAGH and over 40 AIDS service and community-based organizations throughout Indigenous AIDS Awareness Week, which ends today. 

By providing a platform for diverse voices and perspectives to be heard through unfiltered testimonies, the campaign seeks to reengage Canadians in important conversations around HIV – Canada currently lags in its response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic when compared to other G7 countries – by addressing systemic inequities and barriers to sexual health care. 

The campaign also includes information about five key topics that CANFAR’s national network of community partners identified as top priorities through a survey: U=U, harm reduction, stigma, self-testing and women living with HIV. 

You can watch and share the videos below: www.aidscanada.ca.

Martin Morberg

Jade Elektra

Maureen Owino

Ashley Rose Murphy

Christian Hui

Gabriel Jarquin

Claudette Cardinal

Harvey Michele

Trevor Stratton

Muluba Habanyama

JUMOL ROYES is IN Magazine’s director of communications and community engagement, a GTA-based storyteller and glass-half-full kinda guy. He writes about compassion, community, identity and belonging. His guilty pleasure is watching the Real Housewives. Follow him on Instagram @jumolroyes.