Features / #BristolCharityAdvent
#BristolCharityAdvent day 23: Brigstowe Project
Brigstowe have been offering vital services to people living with HIV for well over 20 years. As well as constantly challenging the stigma that surrounds HIV, they offer numerous services including help with immigration, housing, peer support, and continuing to improve the health and well-being of the lives of people with HIV.
Recently, the charity has developed initiatives and services that educate, raise awareness and change social attitudes towards HIV. Their key campaign for 2018 is to share the message that it is impossible for someone living with HIV, who is on effective treatment, to pass on the virus to someone else during sex.
Performer Miss Beaver, at an event to raise awareness of HIV
However, despite this vital work, 2017 has been a rollercoaster year for the charity’s funding. Their regular funding stream from Bristol City Council has hung in the balance for most of the year, with 100 per cent cuts threatened in January 2017. As the year draws to a close, the reduction of financial support is confirmed as 15 per cent. Fellow HIV charity Terence Higgins Trust lost their prominent space in Old Market in 2016 due to their funding being lost.
To accommodate these cuts and changing to funding, the charity are starting to do more community fundraising, with 30 Brigstowe supporters recently running at the World AIDS Day 5k and 10k runs in London. Their efforts raised over £5000, which will be spent on support services that have been most heavily hit by the cuts. The charity also organises club nights in the local vicinity of Old Market, with bars like Bristol Bear Bar and DTYM offering great support.
Two runners at a recent community fundraising event
One person who has HIV and uses Brigstowe’s services told Bristol24/7 when they nominated the charity: “Bristol has already been classified as a high risk area for HIV, but recently funding for these services have been dramatically cut. They are now not in line with the number of newly-diagnosed cases happening.
“The the effect of that is going to be hard to live with. As a person living with HIV, I do not want to think of a time Bristol does not have Brigstowe.”
Brigstowe are currently looking for people to run the Bristol 10k in May for the charity. Find out more about fundraising, or get information about HIV and the support services available to people living with HIV in Bristol by visiting www.brigstowe.org.
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