PARN-Your Community AIDS Resource Network
159 King Street Suite 302 K9J 2R8 Peterborough, ON, Canada

Today, December 17th, is International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers. Today, and always, WHAI stands in solidarity with incredible sex work advocates... and action networks across Ontario and beyond. These advocates are doing tireless and inspiring work to fight for the rights of sex workers and address systemic violence. Sex Workers have fought at the front lines of the HIV crisis, the overdose crisis, violence against Black, Brown, Indigenous, Trans and drug using women - and more. Today - we acknowledge this incredible work of sex work communities and stand in solidarity in the fight to end violence against sex workers. To all of these amazing groups in Ontario, and any that we have missed ... THANK YOU for your incredible and fierce leadership! See more

On June 5 PARN posted a statement on our website and social media pages announcing our support for Black Lives Matter and affirming our commitment to recognizing and addressing racism in all its forms. Months later, this statement sits heavy with us. By signing this statement, PARN made promises to the community that we can’t keep without acknowledging its role in perpetuating harm against Black communities. We know that racism drives health inequities, we see the outcomes in... the HIV sector and beyond every day. We also work closely with other systems that perpetuate racism and cause harm, including police services, child protection services, the education system and more. We have done little to try to dismantle these systems of oppression. We would like to apologize for these failures of the past, embrace the opportunity we have in the present, and build an inclusive and representative agency going forward. To do this, we need to learn from the ground up. PARN is committed to changing the way it thinks about its work and how services are delivered in the community. We need to review our policies, procedures and service delivery models to ensure that Anti-Racism Anti-Oppression philosophies and practices are embedded in our organization at every level. We have begun the first stages of Anti-Racism and Anti-Oppression training with the Community Race Relations Committee and are committed to unlearning everything that fuels harmful practices. PARN’s leadership, staff, service users and clients are predominantly white, and we recognize that this is a failure on our part to reflect everyone who lives in our community. Representation matters, and we understand that racialized peoples do not see themselves represented at our agency. This is a barrier that prevents people from coming through our doors to access services that can improve health outcomes. We are embarking on this work at the same time that we will be engaging in work toward reconciliation with First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples. We recognize the histories and harms associated with colonialism are unique, and will be establishing sub-committees of our Anti-Racism Committee to address both anti-black racism and reconciliation. We will share more information with you as we progress on this journey. http://parn.ca/black-lives-matter/

Live at Harm Reduction Works! #CarolersForCharity

Happening this Wednesday in partnership with Nogojiwanong Friendship Centre @220 Simcoe!

Maggie's Sex Workers Action Project has launched another round of emergency supports for Black Sex Workers: The Black Sex Worker Emergency Support Fund. Donations go directly to supporting Black Sex Workers who have been impacted by the realities of COVID-19. Sex Working communities have been significantly impacted by COVID-19.They have lost income and have been largely excluded from financial relief supports. In the first 24 hours of launching this fund, over 100 people a...pplied - requiring Maggie's to temporarily shut down the fund while they raise more money. Globally - sex workers have been organizing to show up for each other and keep each other safe through mutual aid efforts. These realities combined with anti-Black racism in the sex work industry, have made this organizing critical. Please support Black Sex Workers directly through this fund. See more

Wear your virtual Red Ribbon online! This week is AIDS Awareness Week, when PARN volunteers would traditionally be at various locations throughout our communities distributing Red Ribbons. Unfortunately due to COVID-19, we are unable to hand out Red Ribbons this year. That is why we are asking you to wear our Virtual Red Ribbon on your social media pages this week. Simply download the Red Ribbon image from this post and make it your avatar for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or... any other social media site that you visit. By doing this you will be supporting our efforts to increase awareness of HIV in Peterborough, across Canada and throughout the world. If you would like to donate to our 2020 Red Ribbon Campaign to support programs and services for people living with HIV in City of Kawartha Lakes, Haliburton, Northumberland and Peterborough, please visit: https://www.canadahelps.org//parn-your-community-aids-res/

Gail Parry of Mom’s Stop the Harm Peterborough has arranged for a memorial tree to be placed near the food court at Peterborough Square this December to remember the lives our community has lost to drug poisoning. The tree will be decorated with clear bulbs containing photos of loved ones who have passed away. We are so thankful for the work that Gail does in our community and are proud to support this initiative. If you would like to have a photo of a loved one included on t...he tree, please send the picture to [email protected] and/or [email protected] and we will print, laminate, and deliver your photo to Peterborough Square. This is the second year that Gail has organized the memorial tree in our community, following the loss of her daughter Jody from complications related to drug use on August 11, 2018. Gail and the local mothers in Moms Stop the Harm Peterborough work year round to reduce stigma in our community and support families whose children are experiencing addictions and drug use. We are so thankful for this work, we see how it impacts the lives of people in our community.

There is still some time to support the 2020 #RedScarfProject Will you knit-work with us?

Real talk with REALIZE! Checkout "Racial Justice in the HIV movement in Canada"

Let's knit-work! #RedScarfProject

The PARN office is closed today in observance of Remembrance Day. We will reopen tomorrow, Thursday November 12th at 9:30. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. Lest we forget.

Friday is the deadline to get your Red scarves in!

Happening this month!

In acknowledgement of World AIDS Day on December 1st, 2020, PARN invites you to a World AIDS Day Socially Distanced Gathering. See more details by visiting the event page below.

Today we remember the lives and honour the memories of transgender people whose lives were lost in acts of anti-transgender violence. We will continue to stand against transphobia, demand justice, and work to build communities that are safe and welcoming for trans, Two-Spirit and non-binary people. Take some time today to view the online Transgender Day of Remembrance Memorial https://tdor.info/ ... Demand Justice For Coco: Black Trans Lives Matter https://docs.google.com//1FAIpQLSf_TWvpxVftGK1lJC/viewform Learn more about Transgender Day of Remembrance here https://www.glaad.org/tdor Find out about the many virtual events taking place today in recognition of Transgender Day of Remembrance https://www.queerevents.ca/tdor

Happy Halloween from the PARN team Miss Frizzle would like to remind folks Halloween is scary, but overdose deaths are even scarier. Please make sure you party responsibly this evening!

We are grateful to PARN Peer Ron for sharing the moving story of his journey from learning that he had Hep-C to clearing the virus with the support of PARN's Hep C Services program. Ron is a crucial member of PARN's Hep C team, sharing his experiences with others to help them through their Hep C journeys at regular Drop In sessions. https://youtu.be/rfjJHA7TFP4

A series of consultations around a proposed Consumption and Treatment Services (CTS) site at 220 Simcoe Street will begin in early November with a focus on residents and businesses in the direct vicinity of the site. Peterborough city and county residents are invited to attend one of the applicable sessions: CTS Community Consultations for residents of Peterborough City & County... Wednesday, November 4, 2020 | 6:00-7:30 PM EST Thursday, November 5, 2020 | 12:00-1:30 PM EST Thursday, November 12, 2020 | 6:30-8:00 PM EST CTS Community Consultation for Downtown Business Owners/Organizations Monday, November 9, 2020 | 6:00-7:30 PM EST CTS Community Consultations for Nearby Residential Neighbours (Within 250 Meters) Tuesday, November 10, 2020 | 12:00-1:30 PM EST Wednesday, November 11, 2020 | 7:00-8:30 PM EST Sessions will be conducted via Zoom, and each session has 25 open spaces. To register for the sessions, please visit: www.peterboroughdrugstrategy.com/cts

Let's Knit-work! Please SHARE this post! The #RedScarfProject raises awareness around HIV support and prevention while also serving the needs of our communiti...es in the winter months. Red Scarves will be placed on trees through Peterborough on World AIDS Day. If someone if cold they can take a scarf. We are looking for individuals or groups to knit and crochet scarves. We ask for scarves that are red and approximately 6" by 60" in size, but the pattern is completely your choice! Scarves must be completed by Friday November 27th, 2020. We are also looking for donations of red yarn knitting needs, crochet hooks and other supplies. If you are interested in contributing or have questions please contact Brittany Cameron, Peer, Student and Volunteer Engagement Coordinator at PARN by email at [email protected] or by calling 705-749-9110 x204

The partners working to bring a Consumption and Treatment Services site to Peterborough will be submitting an application for a Site at the old Greyhound bus station at 220 Simcoe Street in downtown Peterborough. In addition, PARN's Harm Reduction Works program and the soon-to-be-launched MSORT team will work out of this location. See all the details in the press release: Peterborough has a new Opioid Response Hub thanks to the ongoing collaborative efforts of numerous comm...Continue reading

This Thursday, we'll be back at 6pm on Facebook and Twitter with a new episode of aidsmapLIVE, 'A long life with HIV'. Joining NAM's Susan Cole are: writer and ...activist Bob Leahy; trans writer and campaigner Juno Roche; HIV advocate and treatment rights campaigner Winnie Ssanyu Sseruma; HIV doctor at The Royal Free Hospital with expertise in ageing issues Dr Tristan Barber; and NAM's Executive Director Matthew Hodson. See more

Throwback to 2019! #RedScarfProject The Red Scarf Project raises awareness around HIV support and prevention while also serving the needs of our communities in the winter months. Red Scarves will be placed on trees through Peterborough on World AIDS Day, December 1st,2020. If someone if cold they can take a scarf. What we need: ... We ask for scarves that are red and approximately 6" by 60" in size, but the pattern is completely your choice! How can you help? 1. Knit or crochet us a red scarf! 2. Tag people you know who knit or crochet! 2. Host a knitting night with your friends. 4. Challenge your kids and co-workers to contribute! 5. Consider making a donation of red wool to keep our volunteers knitting or crocheting. 6. Share this post with your friends! Scarves must be completed by Friday November 27th, 2020. If you are interested in contributing, need supplies or have questions please contact Brittany Cameron, Peer, Student and Volunteer Engagement Program Coordinator at PARN by email at [email protected] Safe social distancing folks. Take care of yourselves and each other.

We at PARN respectfully acknowledge that we live and work on the traditional territory of the Michi Saagig and Chippewa Nations, collectively known as the William Treaty First Nations. On this day, as we gather in our orange shirts, we honour all who survived Canada’s residential school system, and all who did not. We recognize and acknowledge that the harms done by our government’s residential school system were intentional. The system was designed to break families apart, ...designed to tear children down, designed to kill the spirit and if need be, the body. We recognize and acknowledge that this is genocide, a purposeful act of systemic violence perpetrated by the Canadian government and by settler Canadians against the Indigenous people of this land, and that this genocide continues to this day. We recognize and acknowledge that Canada’s current education system continues to do harm. Our system of education is designed to prop up colonialist beliefs of inequity, competition, mass consumption, and white supremacy. It achieves this through the intentional omission of Indigenous culture, practices, belief systems, values, history, and representation. It achieves this by excluding holistic teaching and learning styles, and organic schedules. Finally, we recognize and acknowledge that we have hope for a radical reconciliation with Indigenous people in this country. A reconciliation where all of us who are settlers participate actively and enthusiastically in the unravelling of oppressive colonialist systems and structures to allow for the weaving of a new kind of social fabric in Canada, one where the traditional caretakers of this land hold the threads.

Join us! #RedScarfProject #5thAnnual

Realities of living with HIV. 1.You will curse yourself and that day. You will miss when ignorance was bliss and curse the reason that made you take the test. 2. You will take another test to be sure. Even after this, you will still doubt....Continue reading

Can you help us knit-work for the #RedScarfProject?

Let's do some social knit-working!

WHAI is excited to support the launch of this webinar series, put on in partnership with the Women and HIV Research Program at Women's College Hospital, Centre for Effective Practice, BC Women's Hospital Health Centre, Women's Health in Women's Hands, Simor Fraser University, BC Centre for Excellence in HIV / AIDS, Viva Women, AIDS Vancouver, and CATIE. Webinar 1) October 1, 2020 9 - 10:30 a.m. PDT / 12 - 1:30 EDT: This webinar will focus on the Toolkit for women living wit...h HIV as a self-health advocacy tool. This toolkit was made lovingly in partnership with women living with HIV. Webinar 2) October 6, 2020 9 - 10:30 a.m. PDT / 12 - 1:30 EDT: This webinar will provide an overview of the toolkit for clinicians to support its uptake and use by healthcare providers caring for women living with HIV. For more information and to register, please visit: En https://www.catie.ca/en/webinar-series-wchc-toolkits Fr https://www.catie.ca//serie-webinaires-wchc-trousses-outils

Peterborough Pride Week kicked off on September 18 and events will be running in the community through September 27. Normally Pride Week is a collection of over 30 community run events book-ended by the Flag Raising at City Hall, and the Parade and Pride in the Park. To ensure the safety of the community during this pandemic, the parade, park and other large gathering events have been cancelled for Pride Week 2020. In response, Peterborough Pride has chosen Pride in Other S...paces as the theme for this year’s week of events and has developed unique ways to build connection in our community during the COVID-19 pandemic. This year there are a number of virtual events available to attend to show your Pride and support for Peterborough’s 2-SLGBTTQI communities. All Peterborough Pride events have been planned in alignment with the City of Peterborough’s safety guidelines; https://www.peterborough.ca//city-services-during-covid-19 For a full listing of Pride Week events in Peterborough, please visit: http://peterboroughpride.ca/events/

PARN is proud to be a signatory on the San Francisco Principles a document created in solidarity with the 1983 Nothing About Us Without Us dictum of the Denver Principles which focuses on the urgent demands of Long-Term HIV/AIDS Survivors. People over the age of 50 are the largest cohort living with HIV in North America, and these Principles are a response to the experiences of people who have been living with HIV since before 1996. Long-term survivors experience accelera...ted aging due to the ravages of HIV on the immune system and comorbidities can appear in long-term survivors some twelve years earlier than in their negative counterparts. At age 50-54, cognitive and physical abilities diminish much more quickly in long-term survivors and they become more prone to cardiac arrest, frailty (osteoporosis), balance issues, diabetes, CMV infection, and innumerable other conditions. These health concerns are exacerbated by the intersectional problems of poverty, depression, the costs of and access to healthcare, unstable housing, mental health concerns including substance use, racism, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia. From the preamble to the Principles: Now we are in our fifties, sixties, seventies and beyond, living lives we never expected to have, lives that have been riddled with isolation and loneliness, the expense of medications and healthcare visits, declining physical health, untreated substance use and mental health problems. We live with a sense of having been forgotten, shoved to the side by AIDS researchers and service providers, unknown to geriatricians. We survivors are routinely ignored at HIV/AIDS conferences, while funding for research and services is consumed by prevention techniques and programs. While we recognize the importance of prevention, and heartily support the goal of ending the AIDS pandemic, we insist that prevention not drain resources from caring for those of us who have lived with HIV for thirty, thirty-five, forty years. Our surviving still faces an economic system that continues to evict, separate, and destabilize us. The burden of compounding healthcare costs, a fragmented healthcare system, and increasing costs of living continue to export many of us away from adequate healthcare delivery systems. To view the San Francisco Principles, please visit: https://drive.google.com//1JyemOXcjkskEOE6Tn1UsYRzkL/view To sign on to the Principles, please visit: https://docs.google.com//1FAIpQLSdh7OqTkjkxE6a21/viewform

Hello PARN Page Followers! Despite several mask donations we continuing to have clients who are asking for masks! So in turn, we are continuing to seek donations of cloth masks of various sizes for our very vulnerable clients. Please consider us! ... Thanks for much to those who have contributed to date! If you are able to help please email [email protected] to arrange receipt of your donation. Thanks so much for sharing and caring. Take good care x