USAID boost grassroots support for Thai men who have sex with men

15 December 2006

USAID has encouraged the Alliance to extend its successful work with men who have sex with men into Chiang Mai, Northern Thailand. They have made funds available until the end of September 2007, and hope that they will be able to continue and expand the successful elements of the programme with new support beyond this point.

A technical adviser from the Alliance secretariat’s prevention team carried out a situational analysis between June and July 2006 in Chiang Mai. The aim was to identify currently under-supported key areas of work (or key populations affected by HIV) that would benefit from Alliance assistance, in collaboration with AIDSNet, the Alliance implementing linking organisation for the region.

The assessment report found that the population in Chiang Mai most in need of HIV services is that of HIV-positive men who have sex with men. Despite alarming levels of HIV incidence among them (one small-scale study showed 15.3%), local HIV-interventions tailored to their needs are largely absent (as reported at the International AIDS Conference in Toronto in August 2006).

The report recommended that the Alliance and AIDSNet work together to strengthen the capacity of Violet House, a grassroots, self-help organisation that provides services in and around Chiang Mai to HIV-positive men who have (or have had) sex with men.

About Violet House

Violet House is a user-led community-based organisation. Its strengths lie in its grassroots origins, its reach and its ownership by HIV-positive men who have sex with men. It is a model of outreach and peer support to an underserved population that is grounded in the indigenous Thai approach to community self-help groups responding to their own needs.

In light of the global evidence-base for empowering HIV-positive people and their organisations to strengthen the effectiveness, impact and reach of HIV interventions, no other organisation in Chiang Mai seems better placed to work effectively among this underserved population.

The Alliance and AIDSnet also see this as an opportunity to highlight the programmatic strengths and targeted impact of HIV prevention that result from community ownership and involvement of HIV-positive men who have sex with men.

Project goals and objectives

  1. To contribute to strengthening HIV prevention in Chiang Mai through support of the most neglected and vulnerable HIV-affected people.
  2. To help consolidate the work and raise the profile of Violet House so they will be in a greater position of organisational and sectoral strength by the end of the project in September 2007.
  3. To enable Violet House’s outreach and support programme to reach at least 200 beneficiaries by September 2007.
  4. To enable Violet House to provide an informed and effective peer counselling service and information point for recently diagnosed HIV-positive men who have sex with men.
  5. To facilitate and support the strengthening of Violet House’s organisational links (in particular with STI/HIV testing centres) so that by September 2007 clear referral routes to Violet House for HIV-positive men who have sex with men have been established across key entry points in Chiang Mai.