Awaredressers

I recently attended a wonderful workshop at the 2nd National African HIV Prevention Conference, looking at community approaches to HIV prevention. Speakers from two projects spoke about their work. The first speaker was a hairdresser involved in Awaredressers.

Awaredressers is based in Barnet (North London) and supports local African businesses to be peer-educators in their communities and where appropriate to supply their customers/clients with condoms and information.

There are now twenty participating organizations, including African or mainly African hairdressing salons, barbershops, grocery shops, restaurants, communications companies, mobile hairdressers, minicab firms and minicab drivers serving the North West London area.

HIV stigma in the community has meant that previous attempts to engage local businesses had met with a poor response but the Awaredressers team have developed a trusting relationship with the businesses which has helped establish a true partnership for community health.

Helen Hawkins
Project Worker for Women, Travel and HIV,
North Staffs Health Promotion.

She can be contacted on (01782) 744444.