Sexual health program teaches HIV prevention while building friendships
Totally OutRIGHT graduate Colin Boucher holds a sign with what he got out of the program. Photo courtesy of AIDS Committee of Toronto (ACT)
Totally outRIGHT is a free sexual-health leadership program for young gay, bi, or queer men, ages 18-29, which includes trans guys, guys living with HIV, and guys from culturally diverse backgrounds.
“Totally outRIGHT is a sexual health leadership program whose primary focus is to create sexual health leaders in a community that has been historically and continues to be disproportionately affected by HIV—queer men,” said manager of community health programs and Rui Pires, gay men’s community education co-ordinator, who are both staff at the AIDS Committee of Toronto (ACT).
As they relate, the HIV prevention movement has long-needed more young queer men to get involved as volunteers, staff and board members.
Totally outRIGHT seeks to create the sexual-health leaders that will meet this need, and describe it as a “community building response to increase the pool of well-informed individuals in the HIV and sexual-health field.”
This innovative program was originally imported from British Columbia, however it needed to be adapted to Ontario’s context.
“When we received the Totally outRIGHT program outline, we thought Toronto could build on it in a variety of ways such as: build confidence for participants by adding a public speaking section, connect graduates with jobs and volunteer positions, and make sure a diversity of youth are involved in the program and benefit from it—including youth who may be facing a variety of overlapping marginalizations,” explained Lisk and Pires about the process.
Launched in Toronto in 2012, the program that ACT designed, has produced results.
A “condigram” written by a Totally OutRIGHT participant on what he got out of the program. Courtesy of AIDS Committee of Toronto (ACT)
It now has an alumni base of about 150 young men, and some of them have been hired as peer graduates, according to Lisk.
This position, among other elements, is a way to provide a work environment in the queer, male, sexual-health field for young queer men, so they can go on to other jobs in the field.
Some alumni have become permanent and contract staff working at ACT or different HIV prevention programs in Toronto and other cities in Southern Ontario.
As Lisk and Pires say, there is a similar process happening in the volunteer field and that there has been interest in replicating Totally outRIGHT.
Lisk and Pires explained how an increasing number of young sexual-health educators have enrolled in the program to learn how to duplicate it in other Ontario cities.
For both Pires and Lisk, “the most satisfying thing is seeing a group of people who tell me in the intake process that some of them are feeling disconnected and don’t think they fit into any ‘community’ they see in the queer world, but by the end of the program what I see is a large group of people who are more connected and who have created networks of friendships.”
The next Totally outRIGHT series will take place on Feb. 21, Feb. 28, March 7 and March 14. The registration is already full, but there’s a series planned in May and June.
People who are interested in finding out more about the program are encouraged to visit the Totally outRIGHT website at actoronto.org/to.
