Stakeholder Engagement Report - London Councils

“Settings for work with African people is important – the church is a singular place
you can engage a large audience at a single time. The role of faith leaders is crucial –
people look up to them and this is a way to impact, but they have to be on board - and
not all of them are.”
It was felt that targeted work is required with ‘very hidden populations’. These include
discrete communities of, for example, African and other Black, Asian and minority
ethnic (BAME) MSM who are married and would never identify as gay, sex workers,
recent Eastern European migrants, some of whom are finding themselves in exploitative
situations, either coerced into the sex industry, or at risk of abuse and violence.
“I wish people would stop talking about gay men and Africans as if they were just
one sort of group with one set of needs. If only it was that easy! Not only that, it totally
demeans the different cultures and experiences of the individuals who just so happen
to be at higher risk because of all sorts of reasons”
Suggested Approaches
“Invest in some good old sexual health promotion – invest in services, provide
information for ALL people who need the services – the real thing is about keeping HIV
prevalence low.”
“The current methods favour the larger organisations who are not delivering and they
are not picked up on it, whereas the smaller African and gay men’s groups that are
being innovative do not get funded. Why?”
Creating consistent support within local communities at risk of HIV is seen by the
majority of stakeholders to be an important part of an effective HIV prevention
programme. Given the chaotic or difficult challenges some gay men and African
communities face on a day-to-day basis, this one to one and/or group support is seen to
be highly valued.
Stakeholders welcomed more to be done in order to tackle ‘head on’ the issues of lack
of disclosure, lack of consistent condom use and, for many women, domestic violence
associated with HIV disclosure. Stigma and discrimination continues to play a major role
in late diagnoses. For African communities, this may involve community and religious
leaders in a robust evidence based approach to tackle these issues. A note of caution
was expressed that the traditional approaches of outreach and work within faith and/
or religious communities only reaches those who attend. Organisations working with
African and other BAME communities particularly emphasised the need for a range of
approaches due to the diversity of the populations with which they were working.
There were some stakeholders who believed that if one to one interventions were to be
commissioned, then there needed to be increased transparency about how effective the
interventions are, and a sense that individuals need to be encouraged and supported to
embrace a “personal responsibility” to change their risk behaviours.
“There are core groups of people fuelling this HIV epidemic in London, and they need to
be targeted! Not in ‘blame’ sort of way - but they definitely need some serious input!”
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