[PROFILE] Xiao Bao: Empowering LGBT in China

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Zhao Zheng, known to his friends and coworkers as Xiao Bao, has been working in HIV and STI prevention since 2004. In 2008 he was conferred the title of Youth Ambassador for HIV Prevention by the Tianjin HIV and STI Prevention Coordinating Committee. At 26, he is the youngest of the activists Asia Catalyst is supporting to go to the International AIDS Conference this July. 

Currently the program officer and coordinator for Tianjin Deep Blue Working Group (天津深蓝工作组), Xiao Bao is responsible for, among other things, program management, training, planning, research and evaluation. In 2008, Xiao Bao was appointed a Community Liaison to the China Men Who Have Sex With Men (MSM) Health Forum. In collaboration with the Institute of Sexuality and Sociology at Renmin University, he completed research to assess the size of the MSM population in Tianjin, and initiated the MSM Population Ethnic Research Survey in 2010. 
In the run-up to this year’s International AIDS Conference, AIDS 2012, Xiao Bao spoke to Asia Catalyst about his own work.

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[PROFILE] Lanlan: Leading the Fight for Acceptance of Sex Workers in China

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Lanlan, a founding member and now executive director of Tianjin Xin’ai （天津信爱）was born in 1978, a time of great economic change for China. After dropping out of school at thirteen, Lanlan tried her hand at farming and eventually found work in a restaurant, chopping vegetables and washing dishes. In 2000, after the birth of her daughter, Lanlan turned to sex work to support her child and aging parents. She was motivated to start a sex worker support group when she began to feel, as she says, that “AIDS NGO staff could not relate to sex workers or their particular needs.” Today, Tianjin Xin’ai conducts outreach to sex workers, providing them with occupational safety training, health training, and legal training. The mission, says Lanlan, is self-confidence, self-respect, and mutual support.

Because of restrictive U.S. visa policies, Lanlan may be one of the few sex workers in
attendance at the AIDS 2012 conference this year. Lanlan spoke to Asia Catalyst about her own work and why she looking forward to Washington, DC.

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[REPORT] Dream of Ding Village

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The following is a cross post from the great people at The China Beat. The site provides context and criticism on contemporary China from China scholars and journalists. 

By Mike Frick
“Since you have gone, the house is empty, it has been three seasons now
Extinguish the lamps, let the twilight come, we must endure the setting sun” 
–Chinese funeral couplet

In 2000-2001, Elisabeth Rosenthal published a series of reports in the New York Times that alerted the world to a startling AIDS epidemic among farmers in central China. Beginning in the early 1990s, thousands of farmers in the Yellow River provinces of Henan, Hebei, Hubei, and Shanxi had contracted HIV through commercial blood selling. Local government officials in Henan promoted blood and plasma selling as a rural development scheme that would lift farmers out of poverty.

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[NEWS] Global Fund Announces $1.6 Billion More in Funding Over Next 2 Years

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The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria announced this week a windfall of $1.6 billion dollars in additional funding available over the next two years. The statement points to “strategic decisions made by the Board,” including cutting staff by a surprising 7.4 percent. The new amount also includes a combined billion dollars in donations from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Japan. 

This news was roundly celebrated in places like Burma that were dealt a big blow with cuts to the Global Fund last year. The Guardian reports this week that “in a country where nearly 33% of people live below the poverty line, thousands of Burmese are unlikely ever to be able to afford ART, which, according to Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), cost $30 a month.”

[EVENT] Know It, Prove It, Change It, Workshop in DC

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DATE: Sunday, July 22, 2012 from 2:00pm to 6:00pm, optional dinner following

LOCATION: Mount Vernon Place United Methodist Church 900 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington, DC (across from the
Walter E. Washington Convention Center)

ABOUT THE WORKSHOP: Through a hands-on approach, participants will gain a basic understanding of the international human rights framework and how it applies to HIV; core skills in human rights research and documentation, and the basics of human rights advocacy planning. Our training curriculum handbooks will be provided. Our curriculum focuses on rights issues faced by highly marginalized populations in the context of HIV/AIDS. Download the curriculum, Know It, Prove It, Change It here.

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