UK and Ireland Fastrack Cities and BHIVA Spring Conference 2022

Manchester is indeed the epicentre of everything; from music, partying, football; industry, Corrie…even a crackin’ curry!

However this week, a commitment to ending new transmissions of HIV, supporting people to live well with HIV and tackling HIV stigma were all firmly added to the list!

The Manchester Conference Centre played host to the UK and Ireland Fast Track Cities Conference on Tuesday 19th April 2022 where George House Trust presented on key pieces of work including our Intensive Support Programme and our Positive Speakers work.

We joined NHS and Local Authority colleagues, as well as lots of volunteers and HIV activists and many amazing charities from up and down the country to share the epic work that were all doing in our joint efforts.

Then on Wednesday 20th April 2022, Manchester was host to BHIVA’s Spring Conference 2022!

The 3-day HIV extravaganza brought together experts, researchers, activists, clinicians, people living with HIV, charities and drug companies to talk about everything from new drugs, breastfeeding, campaigns, stigma and innovation in relation to HIV and loads, loads more.

There were thought provoking presentations from a range of individuals, and Josh and Yvonne from George House Trust both had had an opportunity to share their thoughts as presenters. Even Sir Richard Leese and Greater Manchester's Mayor Andy Burnham came along to share their support.

It was incredible to see the passion across both conferences around HIV and the sheer brilliance of the people working to make life better. It was a week of inspiration, learning and creativity and I’ve even been left with a bag full of incredibly important resources from Sophia Forum around HIV and the menopause; something that needs to be talked about more!

It’s so important that we take the time to learn, share and inspire others. My key takeaway from this brilliant week is that when it comes to HIV, it’s truly a team effort, a human effort and indeed a global effort.

Darren Knight

Chief Executive

22nd April 2022

George House Trust collaborated with The Food Chain to create a series of videos on a variety of topics.

The Food Chain is an HIV charity based in London that provides specialist food support to people living with HIV.

Watch the videos on our Youtube Channel here. Topics covered include eating well, good nutrition and healthy recipe ideas for people living with HIV.

13th April 2022

I’m thrilled to be asked to reflect on what breaking the bias means to me for International Women’s Day 2022. 

Recognising women’s contributions is so important. At the time of my HIV diagnosis, I knew of no other woman who was positive. Sadly, many women can live for years - sometimes decades - without discussing, disclosing or sharing their experiences with someone outside of their specialist team.

Isolated and alone, many women do not get the opportunity to share and come to terms with diagnosis. They can carry the burden of social and self-stigma, often leading to poor mental health as the body-shaming is internal and external.

Sadly, although women account for more than half the number of people living with HIV globally; our existence and experiences remain largely invisible.

Women including trans women are still fighting to be included in HIV history.

Our story isn’t clearly told. We have to break this bias. 

This matters, because without visibility we can be seen as passive recipients who are not empowered to take control of our bodies, or influence the medicines and policies that control how we live, and the quality of our lives and choices. Without the greater general awareness that women can acquire HIV, they cannot make informed choices about their sexual health and potentially it can be missed from a diagnosis.    

In my research, I was humbled to find so many women active in HIV history and today.

Not just women living with and affected by HIV, but women influencing the science of HIV; women as national and international activists; women being mother and caregivers. Women giving visibility to other women and challenging stereotypes.

I realised we were always here. 

Knowing this history has made me stronger and has acted as an antidote, in some ways, to the invisibility, shame and stigma that I felt.  Along with better information, support and mentoring, I see myself differently. 

I hope people living with HIV will be able to see these ladies and have role models to aspire to and even beyond. 

I hope that, as you read about my HIV heroines, you’ll be as moved and inspired as I was.

Yvonne Richards, HIV acitivist and volunteer at George House Trust. 

7th March 2022

I arrived at Manchester AIDSLine, the organisation we now know as George House Trust, as a 22 year old Admin Worker at the end of 1990.

Only one word sums up the next 17 years I was lucky enough to work there - change. Change, massive change, in the way we understand and treat HIV.

All sorts of change in the role others (the community, NHS, government, local government) undertook.

Change - sadly not enough change - in the stigma and discrimination around HIV. Change for me - admin worker for a £80,000 organisation to Deputy Chief Executive of a £1 million organisation.
 

This LGBT History Month, it’s right to focus on the significant contribution made by the LGBT community.

The HIV voluntary sector came out of the gay community. Gay Men’s Health Crisis (New York 1982), Terrence Higgins Trust (London, 1982) and Manchester AIDSLine (Manchester 1985), were all people coming together in response to a crisis that was killing their mates in droves. I guess 90% of people we were helping at the start of the 90s were gay men, so this response is no surprise. Back in 1990 we had just moved into a purpose-built centre we had fundraised for and built ourselves (George House Trust).

The stigma and discrimination associated with HIV was so significant at the time that the address was secret, we just told people to look for the big number 7 on the door. Most of the people who came through our doors had sadly died by the middle of the decade, that’s how poor medical knowledge and treatments were. Some amazing people, who were never able to make their contribution to history in full.

My first memory of Manchester’s gay village’s contribution to the first August Bank Holiday weekend was where the Manchester AIDSLine team were robbed of their title in the ‘Gay Olympics’ that took place in the car park next to New York New York. The ‘Main Stage’ was the size of a dining table, and all I remember is repeat performances of drag Montserrat Caballé doing ‘Barcelona’. The weekend was raising money to buy televisions, for the rooms at the Infectious Diseases Unit at Monsall, a hospital long since demolished.

March forwards five years, and it’s George House Trust’s 10th birthday in 1995. Everything was bigger. More people were HIV positive. The NHS and local government had realised that it needed to put money into HIV prevention and care. As a result, the organisation was bigger. We’d moved twice and even bought a new building. The internet wasn’t what it is now, so provision of information to people (about treatments, medical conditions, employment rights etc) was a really important thing to do.

We’d just recruited to a new Gay Men’s Service Manager who over time set up a whole range of support services for HIV positive gay men.

That job advert was seriously radical at the time.

In 1995 Section 28 of the 1988 Local Government Act still in place (making it illegal for Local Authorities to promote homosexuality), the age of consent was unequal, same sex marriage was a pipe dream.

We spent hours in the run up to the 1997 General Election writing to every parliamentary candidate in the country asking them to repeal Section 28 and give us an equal age of consent. History will tell us that that Parliament did just that.

That tiny stage at August Bank Holiday weekend had grown exponentially first to a ‘Mardi Gras’ weekend, then the behemoth we know now as Manchester Pride. Those two gay guys doing drag on stage replaced by Ariana Grande in a multi-million pound event. Its worth saying that in the intervening years Pride raised well over £2 million for HIV support including keeping condoms free in the village for two decades.

The legacy of Manchester’s LGBT’s community response to HIV is significant. A lot of organisations have come and gone but Greater Manchester is unique as a city region to have successful organisations like George House Trust, and the LGBT Foundation, and of course the biggest Pride in the country – all of which owe their existence to that original response to HIV.

This contribution the community made is LGBT history.

Making so many people’s lives better, educating and challenging discrimination with so many more, is something we should all be proud of.

Tim Pickstone, Mayor Of Bury

February 26th 2022