On March 26th, HIV Edmonton stopped by our Journey to Success (JTS) classroom to provide an HIV awareness workshop for our students. The session served as a powerful reminder of why education, harm reduction, and open conversation are so vital, especially when it comes to breaking down stigma and supporting Indigenous communities.
Founded in 1984, HIV Edmonton is a harm reduction agency that works to provide education and prevention methods to a wide variety of audiences. HIV Edmonton strives to push the advancement of health equity, gender equity, and justice to eliminate stigma and discrimination around HIV and AIDS.
During the visit, Katherine Ciampa–the Capacity Building Facilitator (Indigenous Lead) from HIV Edmonton–led a session with JTS students to discuss the impact of HIV. She stated that these are important teachings as cases rise within the Indigenous population.
“Our communities are unfortunately disproportionately represented in HIV cases; we represent 12% of the new cases in Canada, but we only represent 3% of the population. It’s very important to educate our people and try to reduce that spread.”
In addition to the workshop, HIV Edmonton chose the JTS program as recipient of a $10,000 donation. This donation was made possible due to the funding from the Public Health Authority
of Canada, which is meant to help agencies working with Indigenous communities to raise awareness on these issues to keep Indigenous communities safe.
Jake Greyeyes, a Facilitator and Case Manager for JTS, had a hard time describing what the donation means to the program and organization.
“[I’m] Surprised and shocked. It’s going to help the students a lot. It’s going to help the community a lot.”
Greyeyes hopes these teachings and conversations can bring further awareness to the topic while continuing to bring case numbers lower and lower.
“Undetectable means they cannot pass it to anybody if they’re on their medications. And harm reduction, so people don’t get HIV; that’s the big one, to get it down to zero, which is possible.”
Journey to Success is a pre-employment program offering support in career and employment development. It’s designed to meet the needs of unemployed and marginally employed Indigenous people to help address barriers and provide long-term employment