Contributors: Alisha Ostberg, Hanako Rodgers, and Oluwaseun Ayodeji Osowobi Sex work and sex trafficking are concepts that are often conflated despite being separate subjects. Due to this conflation, they can carry significant social, legal, and …
Celebrating International Sex Workers’ Day: A Conversation with Our Shift Program Peer Support Worker
As the world commemorates International Sex Workers’ Day on June 2nd, a significant spotlight shines on the continued stigmatization of the sex work community in Canada. This day, rooted in a 1975 protest by sex …
International Day Against Homophobia Transphobia and Biphobia: An Interview with Advocate James Demers.
The International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia, celebrated annually on May 17, raises awareness about the discrimination and violence faced by 2SLGBTQIA+ individuals. Established in 2004 to mark the World Health Organization’s 1990 decision …
Supporting Each Other Through HIV: Peer Support by SafeLink
Helping others facing HIV has been a journey filled with different stories of people reaching SafeLink for support. Referrals, often facilitated by SAC (Southern Alberta Clinic) or The Centre for Newcomers, come through diverse channels …
World AIDS Day 2023 – Let Communities Lead
As the 35th year of recognising World AIDS Day emerges with the theme of “Let Communities Lead”, it takes me back to very earliest years and the common theme of “nothing about us, without us” …
Say hello to the Well program!
The Well program operates out of our Medicine Hat office and serves vulnerable women in the community. These women might be experiencing pregnancy, might need support accessing birth control or might need support in working …
TRANSforming Support Services
The marginalizing of people who self-identify as transgender and in sex work is dangerously compounded by the societal stigma attached to sex workers — putting people at an even greater risk of violence. Shift is committed to pushing back and here for support and advocacy.
2 Months or a Year – HCV Treatment Improvements
New direct-acting Antivirals are changing chronic Hepatitis C treatment for the better. Hepatitis C (HCV) treatment has gone from a once exhausting 48 weeks duration to as a little as 8 weeks with a 95% sustained virologic response (SVR). SVR is defined as a viremia (the presence of viruses in the blood) 24 weeks after completion of antiviral therapy for chronic HCV infection (. In analyses of SVR durability, the incidence of late relapse is extremely low, less than 1%.
“Undetectable Viral Load, WTF does that mean?”
This is probably the most often asked question I get while doing my community and outreach work with gay and MSM next to “where can I get tested?” It is a word that a number of …
“Don’t Judge Me!”
It took a while to get the courage to go; I was nervous, sticking to the vinyl chair in the waiting room. I knew that I needed to get tested, but I couldn’t tell my …