Positive East

Positive East is thrilled to have been on this amazing journey as part of the Partnership for Black People’s Health (PBPH). The Partnership is a collaborative initiative between community organisations, activists, academics and clinicians focused on addressing health inequities faced by Black African and Black Caribbean communities in the United Kingdom (UK). Using people-centred, community-led approaches, the Partnership works directly with individuals and communities affected by health issues. Together, they co-design engagement activities and initiatives, and identify research priorities for programmes that reflect the needs and experiences of Black communities. Apart from Positive East other current members of the Partnership include Positively UK; SHARE Research Collaborative, Queen Mary University of London; The Love Tank; The Black Health Activists Mentoring Empowering Network (BHAMEN); Tottenham Rights; Women's Inclusive Team (WIT); Off the Wall Players; University of Nottingham; and University of Oxford. In collaboration with METRO Charity and Spectra CIC, Positive East’s Dr Renee West and Mark Santos, were Involvement Leads on this NIHR (National Institute for Health and Care Research) funded project. Together they contributed to two main research events: 1. Treatment journeys of Black African women in London: qualitative insights into factors influencing antiretroviral therapy uptake and adherence. 2. A qualitative inquiry into the barriers to accessing HIV and STI testing among Black African and Caribbean population groups in London. Looking towards the future Positive East will continue to be strategically involved with the PBPH to ensure that community-based research is developed, and led, by Black communities to eliminate health inequalities. A final note - “Black communities are not hard, there are no hard-to-reach communities, there are only hard-to-reach services.” See here for the final report - https://lnkd.in/e6gNh_2G

The UK AIDS Memorial Quilt will go on public display in full at the Tate Modern's iconic Turbine Hall! Date: 12 - 16th June 2025 Time: 10am - 6pm daily Location: Tate Modern, London It will be the first time the quilt will hang in a major UK cultural institution thanks to Tate Modern and Charlie Porter. As Charlie says "It's about sending a message about those lost to the AIDS crisis but also to talk about HIV stigma that continues today". The UK AIDS Memorial Quilt is an integral part of social history, remembering a generation of loved ones lost during the epidemic in the 80s and 90s. Each individual panel commemorates someone who died of AIDS and has been lovingly made by their friends, lovers or family. The UK AIDS Memorial Quilt Partnership is a coalition of 7 UK HIV support charities, including Positive East, working together to find a permanent home for the UK Quilt, to conserve it and to ensure it is put on public display as often as possible. The panels are archived here at Positive East. More information here - https://lnkd.in/e4HvQnr2

Last week Positive East attended the launch of Gilead Sciences’ and The Sophia Forum’s policy report ‘Addressing Inequalities for Women in the HIV Response’ focusing on the gender inequity and failings that women experience in the HIV response. The report highlighted that: - Women account for one-third of people living with HIV in the UK. - In 2023, almost half of all new HIV diagnoses in the UK were among women but only 3% of those were using PrEP. - 42% of women are diagnosed late. Despite these numbers, women remain disproportionately impacted by stigma, societal misconceptions, and inequities in access to prevention, testing, and care. To reach zero new cases of HIV transmission by 2030 in England, the report calls for greater recognition of women's health needs especially in The National HIV Action Plan for England. We need to platform women’s voices in the HIV response, address the systematic evidence and knowledge gaps, increase knowledge and awareness of HIV among all women and provide tailored support that is readily available at the point of diagnosis. Positive East’s Pamela Menzies Banton and Mina Kakaiya contributed to the report. Pam was interviewed for the research in her role as Co-Ordinator for our Women 4 Women project, raising awareness about PrEP and good sexual health for Black African and Caribbean women in London, of which Gilead Sciences is a funder. Their contributions helped shape recommendations going forward as how best to support women living with HIV. Thank you Gilead Sciences and Sophia Forum for placing women at the centre of the conversation. 

This week Positive East attended LDN inspire's Black Health Inequalities Summit in collaboration with Caribbean & African Health Network (CAHN). Euriza Mata, Pamela Menzies Banton, Sarah Boum-Enock and Renee West represented Positive East at this exciting learning and networking event which highlighted the importance of collaborative and community-driven solutions in addressing persistent health disparities. The workshops at the conference including - Health and Tackling Racism; Embracing Diversity in Digital Health: AI, Culture and Ethnicity and Long-Term Conditions and Cardiovascular Disease - highlighted actionable ways to improve the health of Black Londoners. Thank you LDN inspire and Caribbean & African Health Network (CAHN) for an informative day giving us ideas and discussions to take back to Positive East and help shape how we provide HIV and sexual health support to Black African and Caribbean communities in London.

We’re excited to launch our pocket sized Women 4 Women sexual health guide! This booklet contains information about Women 4 Women and about women’s sexual and reproductive health. Women 4 Women is Positive East’s project aiming to raise awareness of and increase the uptake of pre-exposure prophylaxis, know as PrEP, by women of Black African and Caribbean descent and to empower them to take charge of their sexual health. Black African and Caribbean women are at a higher risk of HIV but are often under informed and under prescribed PrEP. In 2023 the number of women in the UK diagnosed with HIV increased by 30%, and this was disproportionately among people of Black African ethnicity. The project upskills Black African and Caribbean women to become Community Champions, learning new skills and raising awareness of PrEP and good sexual health within the community. These booklets will be available at our building and at our outreach sessions but you can find a digital version of the booklet on our website here - https://lnkd.in/eSvD2z5Q

Chat to Pat is Positive East's chatbot improving access to HIV testing and sexual health information. A 2019 study revealed that 66% of people in the UK would be willing to use a chatbot for health-related queries, with 50% specifically for sexual health. Users were also found to be more likely to disclose sensitive information such as condomless sex or drug use to a bot when compared to medical staff. Originally launched in 2018/19 through extensive community consultations, further funding has allowed us to enhance Pat. Positive East used data collected to create over 300 pre-programmed responses, "intents", actioned user-inputted Natural Language Processing, each dealing with a different sexual health topic, e.g. HIV testing, where to access PrEP or symptoms. These 300 intents can be actioned through over 600,000 user input variations. Last year, Pat had 1,600 unique chat sessions on average per month across all platforms. Key user themes include HIV testing (42%), HIV/STI window periods (15%) and STI symptoms (12%) and had high message accuracy (96.8%) and user satisfaction. The initial implementation of Pat resulted in a 77% decrease in sexual health-related emails to Positive East’s switchboard, redirecting focus to face-to-face interventions. Pat is currently deployed on four sexual health service websites, including the NHS. Pat has proven its utility in the sexual health sector and its ability to increase sexual health awareness and contribute to research and policy. You can Chat to Pat here - https://lnkd.in/ehrBPhkx This project was made possible by the work of Ian Montgomery Head of Fundraising and Communications at Positive East and Ingrid Folland from Japeto.

Today is International Women’s Day and we want to celebrate, as we do every day, all of the wonderful women who work to make Positive East what it is today. This day is about celebrating the achievements of women within our community and without the names of those you see on screen now we would not be able to provide the wide range of HIV support and prevention services at the scale we do now - reaching nearly 3,000 people every year across East London. Thank you to the women who make our work possible including our staff, volunteers, patrons, trustees and to our beneficiaries who feed into how our services run, improving the lives of others by doing so❤️ n addressing #PrEPEquity amongst #Women

This week we hosted our volunteer, supporter and World AIDS Day RED RUN thank you party to celebrate the incredible achievements of our community! Your love, solidarity and commitment to supporting people living with HIV enables us to continue reaching thousands of people across East London every year. At the RED RUN our red runners and walkers raised over £69,000 towards our services and our volunteers have donated thousands of hours of their time, essential to our ability to deliver services. This support always means so much but now more than ever with threats to our shared mission of zero new transmissions by 2030, a world free from HIV stigma and no community being left behind as we strive for equality in health. As Ian mentioned in his speech – We’re not done yet, but each step taken at the red run whether it be walking or running was one step closer to a world free from stigma and every minute of time our volunteers donate is one minute closer to a world where the pain and hurt that HIV once caused is replaced with the freedom to love and live without barrier or fear. So thank you again to our volunteers and supporters of the RED RUN who are committed to building that world together. A special thank you again to our RED RUN sponsors – MAC VIVA Glam MAC Cosmetics , ViiV Healthcare, Gilead Sciences , MSD, Pryde and Co - Clyde & Co and Eagle Ldn. Thank you to Homoparody for their incredible performance at the RED RUN despite Storm Bert and at the party! Thank you also to Sarah Malcolm and Ian Montgomery for their powerful speeches.

Thank you to Belinda Rumara for delivering such an important session focusing on conversations about healthy and unhealthy behaviours in relationships, providing a safe space for young people to explore issues around sex and relationships. This event was part of our Project Community Programme supporting City and Hackney residents to take control of their sexual health and wellbeing by working within the community to provide sexual health information and advice. You can find more information on the programme here - https://lnkd.in/egFkAKgP

Our research found that 70% of people living with HIV in Temporary Accommodation were not satisfied with their accommodation mainly due to risks around safety, privacy, or discrimination. People living with HIV need additional support to ensure their physical and mental well-being is protected.   Thank you to Trust for London for committing to provide additional support to ensure people living with HIV's safety.