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May is Asian Heritage Month, and ACAS has lined up some exciting events to celebrate our cultural roots! Asian Heritage Month 2013 May 5 – 27 ACAS celebrates Asian Heritage Month 2013 and diverse Asian community in GTA by organizing variety of events to bring our community together and promoting other events organized by community partners. How would you celebrate Asian Heritage Month this year? ————— events organized by ACAS ————— My story – Living with HIV Date: Friday, May 10 Time: 6:00 – 8:00 PM Location: ACAS (260 Spadina Avenue, unit 410) How gender, race, sexuality, disability, HIV stigma and other factors intertwine in our society? Come join and learn from the personal life experiences of Asians living with HIV in Canada. RSVP required and space limited. Please contact Andrew at 416-963-4300 x 222 or email support@acas.org Asian Bathhouse Nite – Spring Fling Date: Thursday, May 16 Time: 8:00 – 11:00 PM Location: Spa Excess (105 Carlton st.) 3rd Thursday of every month, Asian Men Sexual Health program hosts the Asian Bathhouse Event for Asian gay, bi and MSM (men who have sex with men) filled with fun, educational workshops, anonymous HIV testing, and maybe something more. Asian Men Social Nite – Dating Then & Now Date: Wednesday, May 22 Time: 6:30 – 8:30 PM Location: ACAS (260 Spadina Avenue, unit 410) An evening of discussion on hook up, dating, and (open) relationships for gay, bi, and MSM (men who have sex with men) Asian men over food and refreshment. What’s Up Asia? Panel Discussion for Queer Asian Youth Date: Friday, May 24 Time: 6:00 – 8:00 PM Location: Glad Day Bookshop (598A Yonge Street, 3rd Floor) Queer Asian Youth (QAY) invites LGBTQ community members from Asia to update us what’s happening overseas. Join us for an evening of inspirational stories, [...]

While everyone at ACAS is busy gearing up for Asian Heritage Month in May, we would like to give you a recap of the exciting events we had held in April. Representing the Asian MSM Pathways to Resiliency (AMP2R) Community-based Research of the Men’s Program, Richard Utama, Men’s Sexual Health Coordinator, attended the 22nd  Canadian Association for HIV/AIDS Research in Vancouver, B.C., along with Principal Investigator Dr. Alan Li, and Community Engagement Worker, Christian Hui, on April 11 to April 14, 2013.  Richard and Alan made a successful oral presentation on “Migration as a critical life transition and resiliency strategy among Asian MSM in Toronto,” while Christian had a poster presentation entitled “Negotiating safety, access, disclosure and self care: resiliency pathways of Asian MSM PHAs.” Our executive director, Noulmoook Sutdhibhasilp, also showcased the poster “What Asian Women in Canada think about HIV/AIDS prevention” as part of the Ontario Women’s Health Study. ACAS would also like to give a heartfelt thanks to InSite, the supervised injection site in Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, for giving us a tour of the facility and enlighten us how their presence and practices in the Vancouver Eastside neighborhood have helped the catchment at achieving one of the rare public health successes—-HIV transmission rates in the neighborhood actually went down compared to other catchments. Supervised Injection Sites has been shown to work and drive HIV infection rates down, and more supervised injection sites should be built and implemented across the nation as part of a comprehensive HIV strategy. On March 27, the Women’s Program facilitated a workshop at Nellie’s Women Shelter where most of its service users were Chinese women who have experienced domestic abuse. On April 16, the Women’s Program and the Straight Men’s Locker Room Project collaborated with S.O.S., a Korean student agency, on healthy [...]

Interested youths between 19 and 30 years of age are encouraged to apply. Youth HIV Outreach Worker - Thailand http://www.acdi-cida.gc.ca/acdi-cida/psij-iyip.nsf/Eng/SON-41011363-LB4 Status:Open Organization:Interagency Coalition on AIDS and Development Acronym:ICAD Type:Non-Governmental Organization Mandate:ICAD provides leadership in the response of Canadian international development organizations and Canadian HIV organizations in reducing the impact of the global HIV and AIDS epidemic. ICAD does this through improving public policy, providing information and analysis, and sharing lessons learned. Address:1 Nicholas Street - Suite 726 Ottawa, Ontario, K1N 7B7 FAX: (613)  233-8361 Please visit the website of the organization offering this internship to verify its application requirements prior to sending your resume. Contact Person:Shayna Buhler E-Mail:sbuhler@icad-cisd.com French Web Site:www.icad-cisd.com English Web Site:www.icad-cisd.com Country:Thailand City:Bangkok Sector:Improving health outcomes Position Description: Project Description: Youth and HIV Prevention International Internship is an Asian Community AIDS Services (ACAS) initiative to provide a hands-on, work experience for a Canadian youth who is interested in enhancing their HIV prevention understanding and skills overseas. The project will work collaboratively with the Thai National AIDS Foundation which is located in Bangkok, Thailand to ensure that youth internship creates individual impacts (increased knowledge of and skills HIV prevention, education of youth intern) and desirable outcomes (children’s camp organizing, outreach to Thai youth etc.) for our project partner. Using a peer education model in HIV prevention, the project hopes to connect youth to Thai youth and to create mutual learning from one another. Position Description: Working under the supervision of a program officer, the intern will perform the following: • Assist Thai National AIDS Foundation (TNAF) project partners that provide services to children and youth affected by HIV/AIDS (CABA) with project evaluation in Kohnkaen province • Work with TNAF staff team to organize an annual children’s camp, family’s camp in Kohnkaen province • Work with TNAF staff to [...]

Following Lunar New Year, ACAS had a busy month in which we had put up many wonderful programs and activities. Here is a recap: As a community-based organization, ACAS has always relied on the support of many of its volunteers who generously donate their time and skills to various programs. Volunteers range from assuming the administrative role at our front desk as the first point of contact, to providing the invaluable human connection to HIV+ service users as support program buddies, to reaching out to the East and Southeast Asian community to reduce the transmission of HIV/STIs and raising awareness about LGBTQ issues as peer educators for the Men’s, Women’s and Youth programs. To thank and honour our volunteers, ACAS held its annual Volunteer Appreciation Party on February 20 in which over 25 volunteers attended. We would like to congratulate the following outstanding volunteers from the various programs: YOUTH PROGRAM / QUEER ASIAN YOUTH: Euan Hwang, Bing Li WOMEN’S PROGRAM: Jin Choi,  Aurora Rodulfa ACAS HIV TREATMENT INFORMATION (Website): Amelia Cheng, Aruna Hewapathirane, Steven Han MEN’S PROGRAM: Rudi Budiarto SUPPORT PROGRAM: Rommel PeBenito,  Joseph Tse ADMINISTRATION:  Amelia Cheng, Philip Ha,  Shok Muinao You can watch the wonderful video from our Volunteer Appreciation Party here (Thanks our volunteer Milan for putting this wonderful video collage together):http://youtu.be/sVCHDc5RqEw   The Queer Asian Youth certainly had a lot fun this past month: First, there was the monthly movie night on February 25. Following last month’s gourmet chocolate workshop, the youths will be making delicious pizza this month at it cooking workshop on March 13. To celebrate March break, ACAS will be hosting a Games night on March 14 its QAY members. Lastly, our Youth Program coordinator, Meza, also held a sexual health workshop in Japanese for Brand New Way, an international student agency.   For the men’s program, the research team members from the Asian MSM [...]

ACAS wishes every one had a very prosperous and joyful lunar new year. While we continue to work on developing and redesigning a new website, here are some of the highlights to keep you updated on what we have been doing this new year: Have you seen the pretty pink printed bags at the ACAS office lately? It is the new beautifully designed brochure about “Undetectable Viral Loads and HIV Transmission” from the Gay Men’s Sexual Health Alliance which ACAS is part of. What’s even more exciting about this brochure series is that it features a lot of sexy Asian men. Come pick it up from the ACAS Men’s Program staff or outreach volunteers on Asian Bathhouse Night. The research team members from the Asian MSM Pathways to Resiliency Study and the Asian Migrant Farmworker Study have been working hard and completed a series of its focus groups in the past two months. The teams are moving ahead to the data-analysis phase very soon. Stay tuned for more updates on these ground-breaking community-based research studies. In collaboration with ASAAP, Heywon of ACAS had a successful HIV/STI 101 workshop to over 100 LGBTQ refugee newcomers at the 519 Church Street Community Centre drop-in on January 23rd. Christian, our Community Engagement Worker, followed up with the same presentation to a group of 20 newcomer permanent residents and convention refugees at the Next Steps drop-in at the 519 on February 13th. On January 16th, Heywon Kim, Women’s Outreach and Education Coordinator, and a speaker talked about LGBTQ parenting with talk show host, Jenny Hong on Fairchild Radio AM 1430 as part of Toronto Chinese Health Education Committee’s Media Promotion Series featuring various Chinese service agencies and its services. The Locker Room Project for straight Asian men had its first ever rock-climbing event on [...]

The time of the year is here again! Please support ACAS by becoming a runner, walker, donor or volunteer for this year’s Scotiabank Waterfront Marathon,Half Marathon and 5k! The event will take place on Sunday, October 14, 2012. With the amazing support from the runners, walkers, volunteers and donors last year, ACAS met its Scotiabank Marathon fundraising target of $15,000 last year, enabling us to provide the much needed services for persons living with HIV/AIDS of East and Southeast Asian heritage. This year, we have increased our fundraising goal to $20,000, so please start spreading the word around! If you would like to register to become a runner and raise money for ACAS, you can register as a runner at http://eventsonline.ca/events/crs_scotia/, after which you can choose Asian Community AIDS Services as your designated charity. To join Team ACAS, you just need to search for “Team ACAS” under the team name search, and you can indicate if you would like to join the team. The fees for registration if you are fundraising for ACAS are: $40 for 5k $25 for 5k (Kids <12) $80 for Half Marathon (21k) $80 for Marathon (42k) Free Registration fee will be waived for the top 10 fundraisers and first 5 PHAs to register with ACAS. Those who are qualified will have their entry fee refunded after the race. Please contact Christian Hui at community@acas.org to obtain the discounted charity rate prior to your registration as ACAS will not be able to reimburse you after you have registered.The only exception is for the top 10 fundraisers whom ACAS will reimburse the amount of the registration to you after the race. If you are a PHA interested in running, please contact Andrew at support@acas.org or Amutha at womensupport@acas.org as the first 5 PHA will be eligible for free registration. If you are a youth (age < [...]