Community-based projects addressing HIV, Hepatitis C, and other sexually transmitted and blood-borne infections

The Government of Canada is committed to working with partners and stakeholders across the country in support of the global goal of reducing the public health impacts of viral hepatitis, HIV and other sexually transmitted and blood-borne infections (STBBI) by 2030. The contribution of community-based organizations is central to Canada’s ability to achieve these targets.

April 2023

The Government of Canada is committed to working with partners and stakeholders across the country in support of the global goal of reducing the public health impacts of viral hepatitis, HIV and other sexually transmitted and blood-borne infections (STBBI) by 2030. The contribution of community-based organizations is central to Canada's ability to achieve these targets.

Projects funded by the HIV and Hepatitis C Community Action Fund (CAF) and Harm Reduction Fund (HRF) take an integrated approach to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of prevention initiatives for these infections, along with other sexually transmitted and blood-borne infections.

HIV and Hepatitis C Community Action Fund

Through the CAF, a total of 17 projects in Quebec are receiving $14,516,724 in funding.

Project: DÉSIRS (Dépister, Éduquer, Sensibiliser, Informer pour Réduire la Stigmatisation)
Funding: $1,800,000
Location: Montréal, Quebec
Recipient: Centre Associatif Polyvalent d'Aide hépatite C (CAPAHC) ($904,823); Portail VIH/Sida du Québec Inc. ($895,177)
Project Details: This project aims to increase knowledge, raise awareness and improve services related to the prevention of HIV, hepatitis C and STBBI through training and discussions, both in-person and online. The project will empower key populations, while being mindful of inclusiveness, including trans and non-binary realities.

Project: ACCM Prevention, Treatment Information/Adherence, and Support Community Action Fund
Funding: $1,150,000
Location: Montréal, Quebec
Recipient: Sida Bénévoles - Montréal (ACCM)
Project Details: This project aims to improve health outcomes for people living with HIV/AIDS and/or hepatitis C, and reduce stigma and discrimination around STBBI and communities that are disproportionately affected. Prevention activities such as workshops, peer-to-peer support, group discussions, treatment information, counseling, and a sexual health texting line will be offered to gay, bi, and queer men who have sex with men, trans and non-binary youth.

Project: Lutter contre le VIH dans la Capitale-Nationale : une approche intégrée, concertée et inclusive
Funding: $1,086,544
Location: Québec, Québec
Recipient: Mouvement d'Information et d'Entraide dans la Lutte Contre le VIH-Sida à Québec (Miels-Québec)
Project Details: This project aims to build the skills and knowledge of gay, bisexual, other men who have sex with men, people from racialized and migrant communities, and people living with HIV to prevent infections and improve health outcomes related to STBBI. The project will also build the capacity of current and future health and social service professionals to provide stigma-free and culturally safe STBBI prevention, testing, treatment and care services.

Project: Ta santé en main: mobile toi pour ton mieux-être sexuel
Funding: $1,016,376
Location: Montréal, Québec
Recipient: RÉZO (Santé et Mieux-Être des Hommes Gais et Bisexuels)
Project Details: This project aims to educate and equip cis and trans men who have sex with men (MSM), particularly newly arrived immigrants and sex workers, to adopt behaviours that prevent HIV, hepatitis C and other STBBI.

Project: Promotion de la santé culturellement sécurisante aux personnes originaires de pays où la prévalence du VIH et de l'Hépatite C est élevée
Funding: $1,000,000
Location: Montréal, Québec
Recipient: Groupe d'Action pour la Prévention de la Transmission du VIH et l'Éradication du Sida (Gap-Vies)
Project Details: This project aims to prevent the transmission of HIV, hepatitis C, and other STBBI by offering support meetings, workshops, and training to key populations. The project will also offer educational seminars and workshops to healthcare professionals and organizations to ensure the offering of culturally safe services and the promotion of safe sexual behaviour in a non-stigmatizing manner.

Project: Stella solidaire : actions collectives vers une fin du VIH ancrée dans les droits
Funding: $1,000,000
Location: Montréal, Québec
Recipient: Stella, l'Amie de Maimie
Project Details: This project aims to educate Montreal sex workers on HIV, hepatitis C and other STBBI, as well as healthcare professionals, organizations, and others who provide services to sex workers. Activities include educational workshops, advocacy activities, and training for professionals that may come in contact with sex workers.

Project: Interconnexion
Funding: $996,163
Location: Montréal, Québec
Recipient: C.A.C.T.U.S. Montréal
Project Details: The project aims to improve the capacity of people who use drugs and frequent downtown Montreal to prevent infection, including those who engage in sex work, marginalized youth under 30 and marginalized trans people. Better access to health services will be facilitated through STBBI screening promotion, peer accompaniment to screening, as well as follow-up and treatment.

Project: Mouve
Funding: $967,607
Location: Montréal, Quebec
Recipient: L'Anonyme U.I.M.
Project Details: This project will build the capacity of young people aged 14 to 35, from Montreal's Caribbean and sub-Saharan communities to make informed choices and adopt behaviours that promote good sexual health through activities such as educational workshops, kiosks, and awareness-raising videos.

Project: (Dé)Pisteurs de rue
Funding: $864,415
Location: Montréal, Quebec
Recipient: Spectre de Rue Inc.
Project Details: This peer support project focuses on prevention, information and support for people who use substances, as well as awareness for care providers. The main objective is (re)connecting key populations to STBBI screening, treatment, follow-up and support services through activities such as street rounds; screening accompaniment; information workshops; distribution of safe consumption material and prevention messages.

Project: Advance Community Alliance '2.0': Optimizing Combination Prevention for GBT2Q+ People
Funding: $864,283
Location: Montréal, Québec
Recipient: RÉZO (Santé et Mieux-Être des Hommes Gais et Bisexuels)
Project Details: This project aims to improve the accessibility and uptake of STBBI health services among gay, bisexual, queer, and other men who have sex with men (cis and trans), and Two-Spirit people (GBT2Q) in Canada. Key activities will include community member-led projects; regional communities of practice to better coordinate STBBI health services; and cultural competence and safety training with healthcare and social service providers.

Project: Pour que la résilience soit positive !
Funding: $861,151
Location: Montréal, Québec
Recipient: Maison Plein Coeur
Project Details: This project aims to address the unique needs of gay, bisexual, and men who have sex with other men; racialized and immigrant people, especially from the Caribbean, Africa, South America and the Middle East; and youth, women, and seniors from these communities to develop resilience in order to improve social involvement and decrease the impact of stigma. The project will focus on the prevention and treatment of STBBI while raising awareness.

Project: Programmes d'éducation à la santé sexuelle auprès de populations vulnérables aux VIH, VHC et les autres ITSS
Funding: $775,000
Location: Longueuil, Québec
Recipient: Émissaire
Project Details: This project will provide sexual health promotion interventions to people living in a correctional facility or recently released, and sex workers and their clients. The project aims to raise awareness about STBBI and promote a better understanding of various issues surrounding sexuality, self-knowledge, self-esteem, and the ability to assert oneself.

Project: Nopimik
Funding: $738,485
Location: Val-d'Or, Québec
Recipient: Centre d'Amitié Autochtone de Val d'Or Inc.
Project Details: This project aims to build the capacity of members of the urban Indigenous community of Val-d'Or to prevent and improve health outcomes related to STBBI, improve access to screening and treatment, and increase the adoption of effective prevention measures for STBBI, including HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C.

Project: Innovation from Strength: the Pan-Canadian PLDI Alliance
Funding: $647,292
Location: Montréal, Québec
Recipient: Coalition des Organismes Communautaires Québecois de Lutte Contre le Sida (COCQ-SIDA)
Project Details: This project will deliver leadership skills and training courses to people living with HIV across Canada both in-person and online to help reduce HIV stigma in individuals and their communities. The project will improve health outcomes and engagement with linkages to care, and position people living with HIV as leaders and change-makers in Canada's HIV response, while meaningfully addressing Truth and Reconciliation.

Project: Atteindre ensemble les cibles mondiales en matière de VIH-VHC-ITSS dans les Laurentides
Funding: $422,608
Location: Saint-Jérôme, Québec
Recipient: Centre Sida Amitié (Operating name: Le Dispendaire centre de santé communautaire)
Project Details: This project will implement a collaborative public health and community based strategy to effectively address STBBI. The strategy will provide training to mobilize stakeholders and professionals to ensure stigma-free and culturally safe STBBI prevention, screening, treatment, continuing care and support services.

Project: PLUS FORTES ENSEMBLE - renforcement des capacités pour lutter contre la stigmatisation
Funding: $201,800
Location: Mont-Royal, Québec
Recipient: Centre d'Action Sida Montréal
Project Details: This project will address external and internalized stigmatization of people living with HIV through the creation of a network of peer navigators with diverse experiences. The peers will contribute to the implementation of an empowerment program for people living with HIV to break isolation, strengthen skills and abilities, and enable people to live a better life.

Project: Miro pimatisiwin (qui signifie mieux-être en atikamekw)
Funding: $125,000
Location: La Tuque, Québec
Recipient: Centre d'Amitié Autochtone la Tuque Inc.
Project Details: This project aims to strengthen knowledge about STBBI and increase the adoption of safer behaviours among the Indigenous population in the city of La Tuque. This project will improve access to testing and related treatment, continuing care and support services to improve the quality of life of community members through a series of workshops on awareness, prevention and referral to testing services.

Harm Reduction Fund

Through the HRF, a total of 6 projects in Quebec are receiving $3,590,975 in funding.

Project: Waseskun
Funding: $1,145,840
Location: Wendake, Québec
Recipient: Regroupement des Centres d'Amitié Autochtones du Quebec Inc. (RCAAQ)
Project Details: This project will support the actions of the ten Native Friendship Centres in Quebec affiliated with the RCAAQ to build the capacity of their staff in order to reduce the prevalence of HIV and hepatitis C among people who share injection and inhalation drug equipment. It will also develop a variety of tools and levers in order to improve all services offered in Friendship Centres in relation to harm reduction, with the goal of increasing the overall well-being of urban Indigenous people.

Project: Accès-libre
Funding: $655,096
Location: Montréal, Québec
Recipient: C.A.C.T.U.S. Montréal
Project Details: This project aims to improve HIV, hepatitis C and other STBBI services and care for people who use injection and inhalation drugs and frequent downtown Montreal. The project will improve the prevention of STBBI through harm reduction and health education activities.

Project: Accompagnement des femmes par les paires en prévention ITSS
Funding: $540,790
Location: Québec, Québec
Recipient: Projet L.U.N.E.
Project Details: The project aims to strengthen the skills, abilities and capacities of disaffiliate women and/or sex workers/ex-sex workers who use substances by injection/inhalation and equip them with safe injection practices. The project will offer various training sessions to encourage the uptake of screening, treatment, and support resources.

Project: Par, pour et avec toi
Funding: $439,113
Location: Gatineau, Québec
Recipient: Bureau Régional d'Action Sida (Outaouais)
Project Details: The project is targeted towards injection and inhalation drug users to inform and encourage them to adopt harm reduction strategies to reduce their risk of contracting or transmitting HIV or hepatitis C. The project will provide users with training to inform them on safe behaviours to adopt to prevent infections.

Project: ENSEMBLE
Funding: $435,989
Location: Trois-Rivières, Québec
Recipient: Tandem Mauricie
Project Details: The project aims to increase the capacity of injection and inhalation drug users to adopt harm reduction strategies to reduce their risks of contracting and/or transmitting HIV and hepatitis C. The project will also strengthen the capacity of front-line professionals to provide culturally safe and stigma-free STBBI prevention, testing and care services.

Project: La santé en dehors comme en dedans
Funding: $374,147
Location: Montreal, Québec
Recipient: Association Québécoise pour la promotion de la santé des personnes utilisatrices de drogues
Project Details: The project will provide harm reduction and STI prevention resources for incarcerated people who use injection or inhalation drugs in Quebec correctional facilities. The project will also provide training around the provision of non-stigmatising prevention services for people who use drugs among health professionals and prison workers in Quebec.