The Requisite Project

The requisite project aims to address the specific and unique needs of queer men of colour who are disproportionately affected by HIV and poor sexual health through information, education, outreach, mobilisers and high-quality community accessible resources. Based in London but runs nationally across the country.

Requisite was influenced by MobPrESH, a peer mobilisation project for women and will build on and adapt the iterative learnings from sibling project. Beginning in May 2019, this initiative is led by queer men of colour for queer men of colour to improve the sexual health, knowledge and wellbeing of themselves and their immediate peers.

This project employs a full-time development worker to produce high quality community accessible health promotion and specifically target, recruit, train and support mobilisers to develop high quality health promotion. Whilst mobilisers are supported by the project lead, the volunteer mobilisers are themselves less of a focus of the project. Instead, by providing proper and adequate resourcing to the development worker, they themselves are properly invested in as a mobiliser. If Requisite finished tomorrow, we would have a legacy - someone who was trained, resourced, mentored in HIV and sexual health promotion with a clear road map of what they intend to do next.

Queer men of colour are more likely to get HIV in the UK than white queer men. Even if they have very similar levels of testing for HIV and condom use; they still have almost double the risk of becoming HIV positive in a given year in comparison to their white counterparts. This project hopes to tackle these inequalities.

This is about equity not equality – it might take longer, it might be more difficult, it might even be more work to get more men of colour talking openly and honestly about their sexual health with friends, but just because it takes extra work doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t do it.

Requisite is open to all self-identifying men. Cis and trans men are invited to join this project, as are non-binary (trans masc, AMAB) people.* We especially welcome involvement from men in communities disproportionately affected by HIV, trans men, black and other men of colour, migrants, and speakers of languages other than English, particularly Spanish, Portuguese, Bengali, Hindi and Punjabi.

The learnings from the project will be used to inform best practice around future PrEP education work for queer men of colour.If you live close to one of the project sites (London, Leicester, Birmingham, Manchester, Brighton, Liverpool and Bradford) and would like to talk more about being involved in Requisite contact us at prep4qmoc@prepster.info

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2. What can you do for your friends and partners?

Have conversations with your friends and partners about sex. Talk about TasP and PrEP to break down stigma and facilitate support in your friendships. PrEP might not be for everyone but it’s important that people feel able to talk about it without being judged. We understand that the subject of sex can be difficult for some but research we conducted showed us that gay/bi men talking openly and honestly with each other can be a really effective way to learn and share information about sexual health .

Educate and inform your social and sexual networks about the different ways they can prevent HIV and STIs; attend a clinic with a friend who hasn’t gone before or let them know how and where to get tested or where they can access treatment, PrEP, PEP and condoms.

If you can, use your social media to amplify and share content about sexual health and HIV. Share information you’ve learned or resources you’ve used from Prepster with your friends. Why don’t you start by sharing this page with five of your friends?

3. What can you do for your community?

If you want to help improve the sexual health of your community which includes increasing knowledge about TasP, PrEP education, ending HIV and fighting stigma - become a Requisite volunteer mobiliser! You’ll have the opportunity to learn new skills to help inform and educate your community about HIV and sexual health and be involved in our projects, producing high quality resources targeting queer men of colour. You can deliver outreach with us at community events and venues or use your voice and experiences to write for our website. We also have opportunities for you to work with us to develop and conduct research to learn more about our communities so we can respond effectively.

We also hope you will work with Prepster to specifically target, recruit, train and support more volunteer mobilisers.