Breaking The Silence

To Fight HIV/AIDS Stigma In ACB Community and Share Experiences among Service Providers to Enhance HIV /AIDS Prevention Efforts In Canada

The convention will share lived experiences of immigrants from Sub Saharan Africa and the Caribbean on prevention of HIV/STBBI infection and pregnancy. Emphasis will be on blending this with the realities of children raised and those born in Canada to derive the same positive health and behavioral outcomes. This will be done working with children and youth experts from Canada and the developed world. With many of the ACB youths especially female and the gender non-binary having early sexual debut ages, there has been a loss of knowledge, information, and experience obtained by their parents from their history in their new Canadian context. While the parents and those who’ve lived in the more restrictive environments in Africa and the Caribbean have been inundated with information about HIV prevention, this is not the case with their offspring, both born and raised in Canada. In the absence of saturated HIV prevention and care information, misleading belief in the nonexistence of HIV in Canada, stigmatization of HIV infection and inability to appropriately take preventive measures are the reality of these ACB youth and teenagers.