From everyone at the NHST we wish you all a Merry Christmas and a very happy 2023!
Below you will find the key events from this year.
First, however, we take a moment to mark the very sad passing of our Director of Education, Chris Sandford. Chris’ unstoppable energy drove forward the development of our educational aspirations and reflected the powerhouse of enthusiasm that he had as a gay man living with HIV himself. Chris leaves us with the foundations of a remarkable legacy around the education of HIV for future generations which we will build on.
Our thoughts remain with Chris’ family at this difficult time.
2022 News – another great year of progress for us
In July this year the first part of the NHST archive now housed at the LMA as part of its ‘Positive Histories’ project was made available for public access. More work is underway to make the rest of the archive publicly available early in 2023. You can find out more about the archive and how to access it here.
At the time of the announcement, NHST Chair and Co-Founder Paul Coleman said: “We want to pay tribute to the bravery and honesty of the people who shared their stories with us”, which we do again here.
We launched the audiobook version of our book Love, Loss & Life as we constantly seek to find new audiences through engaging media and through using the stories we have collected in as many ways as possible. We made several stories available as free podcasts and the audiobook is now available on most platforms – download now! We were honoured that the wonderful Anita Dobson joined with 3 others to narrate the book.
If you’d prefer, you can find the paperback version of the book available here.
In a similar vein, to ensure the stories of the HIV and AIDS pandemic continue to reach new audiences, we partnered with the online media company LADbible. With millions of followers across various platforms, the collaboration has meant NHST content has been seen by a huge number of people.
The main launch took place on World AIDS Day and saw Jonathan Blake and Barbara von Barsewisch answering questions about living with HIV and their experiences, followed by spotlighting Michael Jordan’s experience to bring in LADbible’s more sports-focussed followers. For the rest of December, LADbible will feature a weekly post from NHST’s archive.
The posts to date have been seen by over 1.5 million people!
Also for World AIDS Day, the NHST put forward a team of runners for the 2022 Red Run, an annual fundraiser organised for HIV and AIDS-related charities. Thank you to everyone who took part for the NHST and to everyone who sponsored us! Your donations will help us achieve the objectives of the charity. It was a fantastic day with a brilliant atmosphere, bringing together so many organisations and individuals active in the fight against stigma and ignorance.
If you would like to contribute, the fundraising page is still open.
At the end of the summer our new website and brand refresh went live. We have updated our website to have a more dynamic and engaging appeal with a more vibrant colour scheme, also reflected across all our social media platforms and all external facing communications.
Finally, some thank yous.
A big thank you to the It’s Culture Innit group who have NHST as one of their charity partners. We had a fantastic evening at the group’s Christmas social which doubled as a fundraiser for NHST – thank you for your ongoing support!
Thanks to Regency Creative for their work developing our website and a thank you to our latest Patrons – Prof Chloe Orkin, Flick Thorley, David Lyon, and Dr Rupert Whitaker OBE.
Thank you to you for your ongoing support – we look forward to seeing what 2023 brings for the charity!
