PRONTO! Hosts Global Visitors for Upcoming AIDS 2014

Saturday 12 July 2014 the Victorian AIDS Council’s rapid HIV testing site, PRONTO!,
hosted the first of many international visitors in the lead up to the 2014 International AIDS Conference in
Melbourne. Two groups of Australian Award Fellows visited the Fitzroy-based site to see the local model
of community based testing as a reference for their own initiatives in rolling out or scaling up community
based testing in their home countries across Asia Pacific.
The twenty-five delegates from the Asia Pacific Coalition on Male Sexual Health (APCOM) were comprised
of advocates and community leaders from South East Asia and Pacific region. Representing a range of
national MSM and Transgendered networks and community organisations, there were 1-2 delegates from
nearly every country in the region. A second group, linked with VAC partner Asia Pacific Council of AIDS
Service Organisations (APCASO), included twenty-five representatives from a broader range of people
living with (PLHIV) and service delivery organisations from Cambodia , Laos, Vietnam and Indonesia.
PRONTO! will welcome its next group of international visitors on Wednesday 16 July at 2PM with a preconference
meeting for the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF). IPPF staff from their
central office in London as well as six regional offices will be visiting the site prior to attending AIDS 2014.
Post-conference, PRONTO! will welcome a small group of supervisors and social workers from the Society
of Rehabilitation and Crime Prevention, Hong Kong (SRACP) to learn more about VAC’s service delivery and
model on Tuesday 29 July 2014. The following day, Senior HIV Technical Specialist, Dr Thet Tin Tun, and HIV
Program Manager, Dr Zaw Min Oo, will be visiting from Burnet Institute’s site in Yangon (formerly known
as Rangoon), Myanmar (formerly known as Burma).
Throughout the conference, PRONTO! will be operating on extended hours of 12PM-8PM daily from 19-
27 July from its location at 175 Rose Street, Fitzroy. In addition, PRONTO! will be increasing its Outreach
programming with walk-in sessions in a private and confidential space at the follow times and locations:
• 4PM-Late – Sunday 20 July at The Laird Hotel
• 5-8PM – Thursday 24 July at Sircuit
• 8PM-Late – Saturday 26 July at The Laird Hotel
For more information on PRONTO! or to book an appointment at the Rose Street location, go to:
www.pronto.org.au