Grant: Team Grant: HIV/AIDS and STBBI CBR - Racialized people and migrants - LOI

Saskatchewan has seen an increase in the ethnic minority population from 10.8% in 2016 to 14.4% in 2021. This proportion will continue to grow due to pro-immigration policies pursued by the provincial government to increase the population from 1.1 to 1.4 million by 2030 through immigration. This surge in minority population growth has not been matched with programs and services aimed at keeping newcomers healthy and safe. One area of great concern is the lack of culturally appropriate HIV programming for ethnic minorities. The underinvestment, and underdevelopment of HIV interventions in Saskatchewan have limited the understanding of the HIV risk profiles of the community members and subsequently deprived them of the interventions to address these risks. Ethnic minorities who self-identify as gbMSMs and people who use drugs are reported to be most vulnerable due to immense stigma from community disapproval of their sexual identity, or lifestyle. A lack of an HIV-supportive community has hindered the capacity building for the meaningful involvement of racialized people living with HIV (PLIVs). Without culturally safe, community-driven, HIV interventions that address HIV literacy, prevention, testing and linkage to care for this community, ethnic minorities in resource-deprived settings such as Saskatchewan will continue to experience disparities in accessing HIV services. This proposed community-based project is responding to a neglected and direly needed HIV program for ethnic minorities in Saskatoon. Developing a bottom-up approach to an inexistent program requires a robust engagement with key stakeholders to understand how communities are impacted by HIV, and collaboratively explore creative ways to respond to them. Guided by the principles of community-based research, this catalyst grant will build a coalition of stakeholders to develop an HIV framework to guide HIV prevention, testing and linkage to this community.