Family Style Training a Smashing Success
On March 23 - 25th, 2005, sixty participants from Guam, Hawaii, and all regions throughout the United States gathered in San Francisco for the Family Style Training. Titled “Family Style: Successful Recipes for HIV Prevention Programs for Asians & Pacific Islanders,” the goal of the training is to increase the capacity of Asian & Pacific Islander (A&PI) HIV prevention programs in community-based organizations and health departments across the nation and the Pacific region.

This national training opened with an emotional panel featuring Asians living with HIV including a monolingual Burmese political refugee. Executive Director John Mazon-Santos highlighted shame as a key element in HIV-related stigma. Speaking about the first national anti-HIV-stigma campaign in the Asian & Pacific Islander communities across the United States , he addressed the need of dealing with the “shamers,” and raising awareness especially in the mainstream.
Over following the two and half days, HIV prevention service providers had the rare opportunity to build skills on programmatic areas and network to foster peer-based learning and future collaboration.

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