APCOM Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation based in Bangkok, together with our HERO Awards’s Official Host Mel Heifetz, proudly announce the 9th HERO Awards 2025, an annual gala event celebrating HIV, Equality, and Rights, to be held on Friday, 7 November 2025, from 5:00 PM to 9:00 PM at Novotel Bangkok Sukhumvit 20.
For nearly two decades, APCOM has been working with individuals and community-based organisations across 35 countries in Asia and the Pacific to advance health, rights, and inclusion of LGBTQI+ people. Since 2017, the HERO Awards shine a spotlight on those who have made outstanding contributions to the region’s LGBTQI+ communities and to the HIV response in Asia and the Pacific.
In 2025, APCOM, in solidarity with our three regional community partners, APN+ (Asia Pacific Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS), APTN (Asia Pacific Transgender Network), and ILGA Asia, marks the 9th anniversary of the HERO Awards. In Thai culture, the number 9 holds special meaning, symbolizing luck, progress, prosperity, and success. This milestone year will be extra special under the theme “Celebration of Equality,” honoring Thailand’s historic achievement of legalizing Marriage Equality in January 2025, a remarkable step toward equality and human rights across the region.
“The HERO Awards have always been more than an event, it’s a movement of love, recognition, and solidarity. This year, as we celebrate equality, we honor everyone who has helped make history. With the current political and funding challenges to our movement, it is so much more important that we stand visibly in solidarity with our partners,”
said Midnight Poonkasetwattana, Executive Director of APCOM.
Over the years, the HERO Awards ceremony has been proudly hosted and supported by the Embassies of the United Kingdom, Netherlands, Australia, Germany, and Ireland. Each year, this electrifying night brings together guests from around the world; community leaders, activists, UN agencies and development partners, diplomats, government representatives, private sector partners, academia, media, and allies, to celebrate the region’s unsung HEROes and strengthen the bonds that drive equality forward.
This year marks another historic milestone, for the first time, the HERO Awards will be hosted by an individual, the esteemed philanthropist Mel Heifetz, whose generosity and lifelong advocacy for LGBTQI+ rights, remind us that everyone whether an organization or an individual can help uplift the HEROes of our community. Mel Heifetz has been a long term supporter of APCOM since our first HERO Awards in 2017.
“…I am here to help celebrate APCOM’s anniversary – a marvellous group that does a great deal of good in Asia. And I appreciate them, and you should appreciate them and support them as well.”,
remarked Mel Heifetz.
In Partnership with Regional Community Organisations:
Furthermore, APCOM will also bring together about 50 participants from 15 countries across Asia and the Pacific from 5 to 7 November 2025 in Bangkok for the APCOM Community Summit: PrEPARING ASIA 2025, a follow-up to the groundbreaking PrEPARING Asia 2015 held a decade ago. This regional Summit will convene multi- stakeholders to consolidate regional strategies that protect and build on the progress made in HIV prevention, ensuring a sustainable and inclusive future for the HIV response in Asia and the Pacific.
The HERO Awards 2025 Ceremony will take place from 5:00 PM to 9:00 PM, promising an unforgettable evening of inspiration and celebration. Guests will enjoy a fabulously fun cocktail reception with delicious canapés, fine wines, and premium beer. The stage performances, “The Journey of Equality”, will showcase a stunning artistic presentation tracing the path from the beginning for the fight for rights to the joy of celebration.
This year’s celebration also introduces exciting fundraising activities, including a lucky draw and an art auction featuring pieces by renowned artists, with proceeds supporting APCOM’s regional initiatives.
After the awards ceremony, the celebration continues with the HERO Party BKK 2025 from 9:00 PM and going strong into the early hours, featuring a spectacular lineup of entertainment, including: The Voice Pride Thailand 2025 Concert showcasing powerhouse vocalists from across Thailand’s LGBTQI+ scene, Dazzling Drag Show featuring beloved performers bringing fierce energy and fabulous style, and live DJ to keep the night alive with music, unity, and joy. Join us for this high-energy afterparty where the community comes together to dance, celebrate, and honour equality in every beat. Follow APCOM’s social media channels for event updates.
APCOM warmly invites the public to be part of this unforgettable evening of celebration, as we continue to build a society in Thailand and across Asia and the Pacific where equity, dignity, and justice truly flourish.
Important Information
Date:
Friday, 7 November 2025
Time:
5:00 PM – 9:00 PM (HERO Awards 2025) (The ceremony starts at 7 PM)
9:00 PM onwards (HERO Party BKK 2025)
Venue:
Novotel Bangkok Sukhumvit 20
Dress Code:
Gala Night Attire or National Costume in Gold, Red, and Black
How would you like to support the event?
No matter who you are, how big your organisation, how small your agency, there’s always room for you to contribute and be a part of the community.
Apart from the visibility gained from the event, supporters will help raise awareness of human rights and strengthen LGBTQI communities in tackling stigma and discrimination, criminalization, violence, harassment, and inequity in the region, and promote intersectionality across other movements towards the global Sustainable Development Goals 2030. With the current pushback against our work, your every contribution really matters.
Furthermore, the contributions will provide immediate responses needed by the grassroots LGBTQI communities and others in need across Asia Pacific under the campaign #APCOMpassion Emergency Fund.
Finally, the supporters will advocate to form new real HEROes for our LGBTQI and HIV communities now and in the future. All of these means that you are also our HERO who never leaves us behind.
Support the HERO Awards:
Donations and sponsorship inquiries can be directed to [email protected] I +66 (0) 2399 1145
