I’ve been back from maternity leave for over three months now, and I’ve been thinking a lot about how amazingly lucky I am to be working with these women at this organization, and in this field.  Everywhere I go – on the bus, on the street, visiting friends – people are talking nervously about economic tough times.  I admit that I am also feeling a bit nervous these days.  I feel like I want to grab on to Positive Women’s Network, hold tight and never let go – to shelter and protect the organization until this economic storm blows over.  But Tuesday’s Annual General Meeting reminded me of just how capable, creative and tenacious we are.  We will not hide out; we will take the coming year head on, adjusting and re-evaluating and finding creative ways to not just stay afloat, but to thrive.

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We’ve finally had some hot weather in B.C.  Maybe it’s safe now to get excited, and it’s definitely time to pull out the summer hats and sunscreen.  Did you know that the redness and itching that we call sunburn is actually inflammation, caused by your body’s immune response to being burned?  We’re learning that inflammation in general is something to be aware of if you are HIV positive, and that it can actually increase HIV transmission.

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A recent Ontario study of teens’ knowledge about sex found that youth don’t have enough accurate information when making sexual choices. The study suggests kids need information that goes beyond the mechanics of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), pregnancy and birth control, and that sexual health education should be offered to kids starting in Kindergarten. Sounds great to me. To those who say that five year olds don’t need sexual health information, I’ll tip my hat to BC sex educator Meg Hickling’s naming it “body science,” and say get on with it. Accurate, age-appropriate information provides kids knowledge about how bodies work. Starting young means everyone involved in the education (including the adults!) has time to reflect and discuss things over years, instead of in the hormonal rush up to adolescence. In fact, if you introduce the topic when they’re as young as five, you might have more receptive students than you would in nervous eleven year olds who think they know all they need or are too embarrassed to ask questions.

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Executive Director Marcie Summers is at the North American Housing and HIV/AIDS Research Summit this week in Washington DC. It’s sponsored by the National AIDS Housing Coalition, an American organization whose mission is to “Advance creation and growth of housing for people living with HIV….” It’s fantastic that there can be a whole organization focussing on housing and that they share the wealth of their knowledge. Activists from all over the continent are in DC to talk about social determinants of health, of which housing security is a huge one. Having a safe, assured, affordable place to live is such an important part of health, as the folks at the National AIDS Housing Coalition will attest. Canadian voices from the Positive Spaces Healthy Places research project will chime in.

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