Overview

Through our work with Arabic-speaking communities in Toronto, we have learned that significant gaps exist in sexual health care delivery when it comes to linguistic, cultural, and technological barriers. On the one hand, Canadian society promotes advocating for one's rights, including the right to healthcare access. On the other hand, we fail to address systemic barriers that our fellow Canadians, especially newcomers from Arabic-speaking communities face when navigating healthcare.

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The “Pathways to Care” project has six focus areas:

• access to testing

• Treatment as Prevention (TasP)

• adherence to medication

• viral load suppression

• PrEP

• HIV treatment 

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Objectives

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• Increase HIV and sexual health testing in high-risk Arabic-speaking communities living in Toronto.  

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• Increase PrEP and HIV medication uptake in Arabic-speaking communities. Of those tested, we will ensure that at least 90% are either on PrEP or on HIV medication by connecting them to PrEP clinics or HIV specialists within the first few weeks of testing. 

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• Provide workshops on mental health wellness on topics such as PTSD, combating Islamophobia and homophobia, living with HIV, and life skills curriculum tailored to address biopsychosocial aspects of health. 

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• Contribute to the HIV community-based sector’s impact on the Prevention, Engagement, and Care Cascade in Canada. 

Services

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• Increasing testing for HIV/STBBI testing in Arabic-speaking communities. 

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• Connecting Arabic-speaking community members with PrEP clinics or HIV specialists within a short time after testing. 

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• Promoting mental health through addressing the main driver for poor sexual health uptake - stigma 

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• Increasing understanding of TasP and U=U in Arabic-speaking communities. 

Date Started August 2021   Date Ends July 2022
 

Funder ViiV Healthcare
 

For Connecting Arabic-speaking community members to health services  


Languages English and Arabic