As part of our Annual General Meeting, we welcomed Trevor Stratton, Indigenous Leadership Policy Manager for CAAN as keynote speaker:
The key to ending HIV/AIDS: Meaningful Engagement with Indigenous peoples
Trevor Stratton is a 57-year-old, two-spirit citizen of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation near Toronto, Canada with mixed English and Ojibwe heritage. Diagnosed with HIV in 1990, he is the Indigenous Leadership Policy Manager for CAAN, known as Communities, Alliances and Networks. Trevor has over a decade of experience working with Indigenous Peoples and HIV at the international level. Trevor is a Board Director for 2-Spirited People of the 1st Nations in Toronto, the Canadian AIDS Treatment Information Exchange (CATIE) and the Canadian Foundation for AIDS Research (CANFAR).
Trevor connected some important snapshots along the path of HIV activism and community organizing locally, provincially, nationally, and internationally, providing insights into the changing landscape of the HIV response through the past 3 decades.
He touched on some of the key values, approaches, and guidelines in conducting HIV research with Indigenous Peoples including the Greater Involvement of People living with HIV/AIDS (GIPA). He also discussed the Global Indigenous Commitment-to-Action on HIV and AIDS created in July of 2022.
Only with the meaningful engagement of Indigenous Peoples will Canada and the world reach the 95-95-95 targets by 2025 and end HIV/AIDS as a public health threat by 2030.