The Love Yourself Project

The Love Yourself Project aims to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS among the youth and the Men who have Sex with Men (MSM) sector in the Philippines, primarily through education and counseling. It is the first project by the VINN Advocacy group.

From the Love Yourself Project website:

The acronym V.I.N.N. stands for Venereal Infection Nuisance Nursing, wherein the word NURSING, has an operational definition that does not implicate nor has any relation to the nursing profession, but instead the verb connoting care or nurturing. This organization aims to help the Filipino LGBT giving priority to the high risk MSM (men having sex with men) sector to prevent, detect, treat and control the spread of sexually transmitted infections.

STIs pose a big threat to Filipino LGBT-MSM (men having sex with men) of the nation according to the most recent statistics of reported HIV/STD sexual transmission cases (dated January 2011), LGBT-MSM peaked from last year’s 74% to a whopping 81% sexual transmission rate, giving a cumulative 1984-2010 rate of 54.8% which is very alarming.

True enough, the government has a good program about it, yet it is underutilized, there are no organizations, support group or resource centre here in the Philippines that provides free detection, treatment, contact tracing and education on prevention and management of venereal infections. The organization wants to spearhead this cause.

VINN Advocacy supports the Filipino LGBT-MSM (men having sex with men) through counselling on sexuality issues, diagnosis and management of STD and HIV to optimally eradicate the growing morbidity rate among the youth and LGBT in the Philippines. It wishes to establish a resource centre, a safe house for the LGBT-MSM in the Philippines.

Find out more about the VINN Advocacy and The Love Yourself Project here.