REACH LA NEWS

Harry McAnulty, a student from the University of Ulster in Belfast, Northern Ireland, recently completed a 4 week residency at REACH LA. Harry became interested in REACH LA when he met Executive Director Martha Chono-Helsley, who was on work placement in Belfast as part of the Global XChange program. The Rainbow Project, an organization that serves gay and bisexual men of Northern Ireland, became the back drop for the meeting. The two found that they had a great deal in common. Both were HIV prevention education specialists who worked with gay and bisexual young men in their respected countries. Harry was responsible for Rainbow Project’s gay men’s HIV education and testing program that works in collaboration with the Royal Hospital in Belfast. His experience with HIV testing led to many deep conversations about the differences in practice, types of resources available and how REACH LA developed social marketing events around testing. As a student of Community Studies, he was intrigued with how REACH LA works with the local health departments, medical service providers and other community based organizations. So an invitation was extended to Harry to come to Los Angeles to learn about HIV prevention efforts in the US. He arrived in Los Angeles on June 4th and was able to visit with many of LA’s best HIV prevention resources including Mario Perez and Sophia Rumanes from the Los Angeles County Public Heath, Office of AIDS Programs and Policies; Stephen Simons and Ricky Rosales from the LA City AIDS Coordinator’s Office, the CHLA Connect to Protect Coalition and theREACH LA Ovahness Leadership. He also had a great time observing the HIV prevention outreach efforts at LA Pride and San Francisco Pride during his tenure. He returned home at the end of the month. He will be missed and we are sure that he is ready to make some bold advances in HIV prevention efforts that will forever change Northern Ireland.