Team Rocks Conferences in Las Vegas & Toronto
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Re-visioning Prostitution Policy:
Creating Space for Sex Worker Rights and Challenging Criminalization
July 9-12, Las Vegas NV
This conference brought together sex workers, advocates and allies interested in working toward decriminalization of prostitution in the US, to provide training/networking resources for advocates, to create spaces for dialogue among workers and between workers, supporters, academics and policy makers, to identify workers' most pressing needs and to collaborate on strategies for social and political change on local, state, and national levels. The focus was to develop strategies and skills for ending the criminalization of sex work and sex workers. The goal was to empower sex workers and their advocates/allies with the knowledge, strength, confidence, and capacity to put these practices into action, a goal that we made great strides in reaching. Different Avenues staff participated in much of the conference, which generated some good press, and some mediocre press. It was a major opportunity for us to share the excellent work we are doing, from the internet outreach to work in the venues to leadership development.
Check their wesbite for more info.
XVI International AIDS Conference
August 13-19, Toronto Canada
The International AIDS Conference brings together people from around the world to discuss global HIV/AIDS epidemic. Two members of Different Avenues staff went to Toronto to participate in this landmark opportunity for science, government, community and leadership from around the world to advance our collective response to the epidemic. Different Avenues had an abstract accepted based on our work with women working in venues. We will also be presented on a panel about transgender HIV-related needs, with others from around the world. We were glad to meet up with activists from all over working on many issues, like sex worker rights and the needs of LGBT people. Our visit to The 519 community center was exciting - we met the mayor of Toronto and leader of the Liberal Party in Parliament (who liked Erika's tattoos!). Pictures coming soon!
More info on teh conference here.