SFAF Launches HIVision Forum Series

"If you built prevention programs and treatment programs based on strengths rather than deficits, you'd have a lot more to offer the community." The scene was the San Francisco LGBT Community Center and the speaker, Dr. Ron Stall, one of the panelists gathered for "Exploring What's Positive in Gay Men's Health," the July 10 event which kicked off the San Francisco AIDS Foundation's new HIVision forum series. From serosorting to substance use, the evening's topics sparked lively discussion of community-based solutions to health challenges— and how the gay community's inherent strengths can and should shape a new model of gay men's health.

In keeping with its 25-year history of innovative (and sometimes controversial) responses to HIV/AIDS, the San Francisco AIDS Foundation developed the HIVision forum series to bring research and evidence to bear on timely policy and program issues that affect people living with HIV. HIVision also provides a safe venue for community discussion of potentially contentious topics. In his welcome to participants at July's event, Executive Director Mark Cloutier noted that the forum series is designed to foster collaboration and engagement with peer organizations, policy makers,heparesearchers, clinicians, and, most importantly, the community at large: "I'm especially proud of HIVision because it demonstrates one of the most important ways the San Francisco AIDS Foundation can play a leadership role in this community."

HIVision launched in July as experts joined a full house to discuss gay men's health.

"Preventing HIV in Prisons and Jails" was the topic of the October HIVision forum, cosponsored by the Center for Health Justice. With HIV prevalence five to seven times higher among the incarcerated than in the general U.S. population, "missing the HIV prevention opportunity that incarceration presents is like sticking our heads in the sand," said Mary Sylla, Director of Policy and Advocacy for the Center for Health Justice and moderator for the forum. "We simply cannot continue to lock high-risk people up together in overcrowded conditions for years at a time and act like HIV transmission is not going to take place." In this public event, held at the Delancey Street Foundation, panelists shared their diverse perspectives on—and first-hand experience with—HIV prevention policy and practice in jails and prisons.

In recognition of World AIDS Day, HIVision will end the year on November 29 with "From Local Knowledge to Global Solutions," a public forum at the San Francisco Library's Koret Auditorium. The speakers, including Thomas Cai, founder of AIDS Care China, will highlight successful local strategies to improve and expand HIV prevention, care, and treatment in Asia, Eastern Europe, and sub-Saharan Africa, particularly among socially marginalized groups.

For more information about upcoming HIVision events, please call 415-487-3073 or visit www.sfaf.org/HIVision.

The San Francisco AIDS Foundation is currently developing next year's 2008 HIVision forum line-up and welcomes suggestions for future events; please send your comments to HIVision@sfaf.org.