Season’s Greetings From APCOM

Dear APCOM Friends,
We would like to send a BIG thank you for supporting our efforts throughout 2017 to improve the lives of the people and communities which APCOM serves.
It has been a momentous year for APCOM as we commemorated 10 years of working with our partners, supporters and community members to fight HIV and advance the health and rights of LGBT people and people affected by HIV.
Highlights of our landmark year included:

Delegates at the RRRAP Summit

• Rights, Resources & Resilience Asia Pacific Summit – Over 300 HIV and community health workers from across the Asia Pacific met in November to help map out new strategies to address HIV and LGBT health and rights for the region.

APCOM ED Midnight Poonkasetwattana (centre) at the HERO Awards with guests from the Pacific

• The first Asia Pacific HERO Awards – 22 heroes of the Asia Pacific response to HIV and LGBT health and rights were honoured at our gala fundraising event.

USAID’s Siana Tackett, US Ambassador to Thailand Glyn T. Davies, APCOM ED Midnight Poonkasetwattana and fmr UNAIDS Asia Pacific Regional Director Steve Kraus at Connecting Asia Conference

• Connecting Asia ICT Conference – using ICT to better connect MSM with HIV prevention, testing and treatment was the focus of this conference attended by 200 community health workers from across the Asia Pacific.

TestJKT digital advertisement

GAYOK Bangkok S2 digital advertisement

• The expansion of our TestXXX HIV testing education campaign to Hong Kong, Jakarta, Manila, and Yogyakarta, and the launch of the second series of GAYOK Bangkok – an online drama series with an innovative approach to raising awareness about HIV prevention, testing and treatment.

• The launch of our PULSE project, encompassing research, community capacity strengthening and advocacy effort that aims to improve the lives of young MSM in Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam.

• The launch of Sustainable HIV Financing in Transition (SHIFT) project – an initiative in partnership with AFAO and APCASO which helps HIV organisations in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand develop their capacity to advocate for HIV prevention and treatment funding from their respective national governments.

• The launch of our WISDOM project which provides technical assistance to LGBT partners in Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR and the Philippines to improve their access to social services through advocacy and political participation.

• The continuation of our Multi-Country South Asia Global Fund HIV initiative which seeks to strengthen the knowledge, capacity and advocacy of HIV community-based organisations in 7 countries throughout the South Asia region.

• Our engagement at the 7th ILGA Asia Conference in Phnom Penh, Cambodia where we presented sessions on exploring LGBTI community activism in Cambodia and addressing LGBT violence in humanitarian settings.

• Our engagement at the 9th IAS Conference on HIV Science in Paris, France

These and many other achievements would not have been possible without the support of our friends across the globe. Many many thanks for your kind contributions.
We wish you and your loved ones a very happy New Year and we look forward to working with you in 2018 as we develop and implement our new strategic plan!

All the best from the team at APCOM.