With the whirlwind of activities for National HIV Testing Week 2017 and the lead up to and including World Aids Day behind us, we thought we’d pick out a few highlights from the two weeks.
Over 40 Locations and venues stretched across Spectra’s commissioned boroughs, with almost 70 sessions, there are so many to choose from. Some of these included a three-day road show at The Pavilions Shopping Centre, Uxbridge, via Battersea Power Station and the Kingston Health Bus to Civic Centres at Hounslow and Twickenham.
We tested hundreds of people over the period and were delighted to receive local support including from Tom Brake, MP for Wallington & Carshalton, Reverend Sally Hitchiner, Hitesh Tailor, Councillor, long established partners Wandsworth OASIS and Virgin Atlantic at Heathrow.
We’d like to thank everyone who worked, supported, tweeted, followed, tested and helped to raise awareness over the period. Though NHTW is a great opportunity to raise awareness of getting tested for HIV and reducing the stigma associated with it, we provide testing all year round at our various events, venues and locations. For more details check our events page here
First up, an outreach event at Heathrow airport, supported by Virgin Atlantic, enabled our team to engage with staff at the airline, providing Information on testing services, applicable to the staff personal locations, motivational interviewing, free sexual health information and advice, including PrEP and PeP and free condoms.
At Brunel University, we were joined by the Reverend Sally Hitchiner, who supported the campaign to encourage people to get tested for HIV and contributed to a video detailing one of the options on testing, via a rapid HIV testing kit, and demonstrated how to test with a swab test.
Click here for LB brunel vid
The end of National Testing week saw our pop up stand in the St. Nicholas Shopping Centre in Sutton, offering Sexual Health information, details on PrEp and PeP, condoms and HIV tests. Working from our amazing stand, kindly funded by Sutton Council, we engaged with 100’s of people over the two days.
Tom Brake, MP for Wallington & Carshalton joined us at Wallington Library to show his support in the area raising awareness about regularly testing for HIV, and even got tested himself. We were joined by Leanne and Molly from the Sexual Health Commissioning team at Sutton Council to help us #GiveHIVTheFinger.
Lastly a shout out to the local press, blogs and social media channels who helped to promote our activity, including articles like this from Sutton Voice
http://suttonvoice.co.uk/spectra-london-leading-way-to-improve-sexual-health/
Here’s to 2018!