Happy Lunar New Year 2015! On behalf of the Board and staff at ACAS, we wish everyone an amazing, prosperous and healthy year ahead! Thank you for all your continued support in our work and being a part of the ACAS and QAY family!
Queer Asian Youth celebrates 15 years of building LGBTQ youth leadership in the East and Southeast Asian community
This February, Queer Asian Youth (QAY), ACAS’ Youth Program, is celebrating its 15th anniversary of providing a supportive and healthy safe space for East and Southeast Asian youth.
Reflection from Julia Lo, Community Leader and QAY member:
As a lead-up to this significant event and to continue with our #ACASturns20 celebration, Julia Lo, the Recipient of the ACAS CelebrAsian Community Activist Award in 2012 reflected on how ACAS and Queer Asian Youth have helped her become a youth leader in Toronto and the Asian Community.
QAY’s We Still Here?! 15th Anniversary at Buddies at Bad Times Theatre:
To celebrate 15 years of the amazing work of Queer Asian Youth in creating the much-needed safe space for LGBTQ Asian youth and creating youth leaders in our community, past and present QAY members celebrated a fabulous evening and commemorated our milestone with talented performances, fun, and retrospection of our many achievements.
Queer Asian Youth (QAY) provides social spaces for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transsexual, transgender, queer, curious, undecided, or questioning East and Southeast Asian youth and their friends. Through providing a culturally appropriate safe space for LGBTQ Asian youth and building a strong peer support network, our program emphasizes on the building of future queer Asian leaders in our community.
Goodbye Meza! We will miss you as our Youth Education and Outreach Coordinator!
QAY’s 15th Anniversary also marks the last day of our beloved Youth Education and Outreach Coordinator, Meza Daulet. The good news is Meza will remain as our Social Media Coordinator. We would like to express our heartfelt gratitude to the amazing work Meza has done in the past 5 years and we wish him all the best in his future endeavors!
History of ACAS Support Program Workshop with Dr. Alan Li
We would like to sincerely thank ACAS co-founder Dr. Alan Li for sharing all the special and wonderful stories from 20 years of ACAS history on February 20, 2015 with our Support Program service users and community members for this special ACAS Support Program Health Promotion Workshop.
We would also like to thank the Ontario Positive Asians (OPA+) network project advisory committee members for speaking about the exciting work they are doing for Asians living with HIV across Ontario. OPA+ is a network for and by Asians living with HIV in Ontario supported by Asian Community AIDS Services (ACAS) and Alliance for South Asian AIDS Prevention (ASAAP). Look out for exciting news and development about the OPA+ Caucus this April 2015.
ACAS presentation for the Toronto Public Health AIDS and Sexual Health Infoline Staff
On February 26, 2015, ACAS staff members Jenny Cheng, Brian-Bao Ly, and Christian Hui gave a presentation to the Toronto Public Health AIDS and Sexual Health Infoline staff about the many services of ACAS. We would like to thank Brian Chen, Supervisor of the AIDS and Sexual Health Infoline for inviting us to speak and present to our public health partners.
Until next time! See you in March!
