Page 4212 - Week 13 - Thursday, 14 December 2006
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people affected, provides valuable support for people living with HIV/AIDS and facilitates peer support activities to enable people to provide support for each other.
Of course, many people living with HIV/AIDS are unable to work and have trouble making ends meet. HIV/AIDS affects not only their health but their whole quality of life. The Trevor Daley Fund seeks charitable donations and provides material assistance to meet the needs of people affected. During the World AIDS Day campaign this year, funding was raised for the Trevor Daley Fund through the sale of red ribbons, lapel pins and wrist bands. I am very pleased to note that the AIDS Action Council reports the highest sales in about three years from the ribbon drive for this year’s World AIDS Day.
There are a number of other projects. The Sex Workers Outreach Project aims to prevent the further transmission of HIV; project officers visit brothels and provide information and condoms to sex workers in the ACT. There is provision of services through the ACT Division of General Practice, and counselling services are provided by the Haemophilia Foundation ACT. The Winnunga Nimmityjah Aboriginal Health Service is another local service that provides prevention, diagnosis and treatment services to its clients.
We cannot forget the contributions of the drug and alcohol sector in prevention and education concerning HIV/AIDS and other blood borne diseases. Needle and syringe programs are an important measure to prevent infections, through the provision of sterile injecting equipment, and they act as a point of education and referral. Drug treatment services can also act as a point of education and referral for testing and treatment of HIV/AIDS.
A series of outreach service partnerships are also in operation. The effectiveness of the partnership in the ACT is demonstrated through the PACT program. The “partnership approach to comprehensive testing” targets priority populations through education and testing in outreach settings within the ACT. This program has been operating for several years through a partnership between the AIDS Action Council of the ACT, the ACT Division of General Practice and the Canberra Sexual Health Centre.
It is worth noting that the ACT is an Australian leader in such innovative projects, having often commenced such projects and innovative education campaigns against criticism from other jurisdictions that have advised that they would not be effective. This can-do approach has seen a lot of exciting work undertaken in the ACT. A particularly famous campaign was launched in 2002 by the AIDS Action Council. It was the “Cover Yourself in Canberra” campaign, which showed condoms over Canberra landmarks. Perhaps that was a slightly different twist on Christo. The aim was to promote condom usage amongst a broad audience, including tourists.
At the time, the council was criticised by some who said that the campaign was too broad and that HIV prevention needed a more sophisticated approach. However, since that time, several jurisdictions have focused on simple condom messages, and the cover yourself concept and images have even been adapted for campaigns in Asia. I congratulate the AIDS Action Council of the ACT for their leadership and foresight in this campaign.
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