life is moving and changing at a very fast rate. This week I have to move, finish off the TIG scrapbook, and drive to Tennessee. Right now I am writing from you from the AIDS Prevention Program funding tribunal room in City Hall. TRIP! is a community harm reduction project that just got a huge chunk of it's funding cut. RIght now we are making an appeal to the board. It is very interesting to find out the reasons that they think they should cancle our project. One of the board members said that he didn't think raves happend anymore. The other councler said that he heard on 20/20 that ravers and youth didn't listen or care about safe sex or drug information. it seemed like there was a lot of discussion and disagreement within the group. i hope that it works for our advantage!

here is an message from our coordinator that shows you some things you can do if you want to help out:

The Toronto Raver Info Project (TRIP!) provides onsite, peer-based harm
reduction education and support to Toronto’s diverse dance music
communities. The project, currently in it’s 9th year of operation, is at
risk for shutting down completely as the City of Toronto’s AIDS Prevention
Program, which has funded TRIP since its inception, has denied the project
any funds for the coming year. This action, in part, comes as a result of
their (mis)understanding that:

1. Electronic music events are ‘a thing of the past’
2. Onsite intervention is not necessary in club/party environments
3. That somehow, TRIP does not focus on HIV Prevention (regardless of the
fact that we have been distributing tens of thousands of condoms in
club/party environments, offering needle exchange, producing print
literature on HIV transmission, sexual assault, etc.)

This email is being sent to various people and organizations around the
world asking for help by simply sending an email (which is already written
below!) to City Counselors in Toronto asking them to reinstate funding for
the TRIP Project. We WILL NOT have our community denied it’s right to
health and safety, and we WILL hold the City of Toronto accountable for its
actions.

Please continue reading this email in its entirety, and forward on to anyone
you believe can help us.
Kindly, Erin Lewis, TRIP! Project Coordinator (elewis@ctchc.com)

For more information on the TRIP Project, please visit
www.torontoraverinfoproject.ca



TRIP CREW, FRIENDS and SUPPORTS:

I received news last night that our funding from the City's AIDS Prevention
Program (APP) of Toronto Public Health was denied. APP funds all of our
outreach activities, including the outreach workers, and without this vital
source of funding there is virtually no more TRIP.

This means that come June 30th of this year, TRIP will no longer be active
unless the community rises up to oppose the City's decision to, in effect,
abandon health and safety services to the dance music scene.

We are looking for support in all areas. Please read on about how you can
help MAKE SOME NOISE about this ludicrous decision made by the APP funding
committee.

APPEAL (for Toronto-centric folks)
Although all of the APP money has been allocated to other organizations for
this coming year, we still have an opportunity to voice ourselves during an
appeal process this coming week. As there doesn’t appear to be any money
left for us to request, our sole purpose for appealing will be to let the
people on the committee know that the consequent effects of their decision
will be felt greatly on many levels.

The exact time of our appeal is 10am this coming Tuesday May 25th at City
Hall. We need as many people as possible to make it out and to show their
support for the project in its time of need. You don’t need to do anything
or bring anything, just BE THERE.

Tuesday May 25th
10am
Committee Room #3, 2nd Floor
Toronto City Hall (100 Queen Street West @ Bay St.)


EMERGENCY FUNDS (Local and International Support)
TRIP is desperately in need of emergency funds to continue operating, at
least on a skeleton budget. Please contact Erin Lewis, TRIP Project
Coordinator at elewis@ctchc.com and let her know how you can help. Here are
some ideas that require little work with great results:

1) Throwing a party? Increase your ticket sales by $1 or $2 dollars per
ticket, and donate this to TRIP.

2) Donate water sales from your club/venue/event to TRIP

3) Host a fundraising event for the project

4) STORES: Selling tickets? Donate your ‘service charge’ on sold event
tickets to TRIP

These are just a few that come to mind. Please let us know how you can
help. Be aware that we are in a position to write tax receipts for
donations over $100. Contact Erin Lewis at elewis@ctchc.com for more
information.

SPREAD THE WORD (Local and International Support)
Forward this information to everyone in your address book, to all
organizations that you feel should know about this issue, and please please
please post it on all message boards you know of! We need as many people as
possible to really put pressure on the City of Toronto.

Remember the crackdown on raves that occurred only a few years ago… the City
effectively shut down our parties, our venue spaces, and ran promoters out
of the scene; don’t allow another blow to our community! Don’t allow them
to shut down our community health project!

WRITE THE CITY OF TORONTO IMMEDIATELY! (Local and International Support)
We need people to cut and paste the following information into an email or
letter to the APP Grants Review Panel, Mayor Miller, and City Counselors who
can fight for us. Feel free to modify the information in a way that suits
your perspective, while still creating the necessary impact we wish to have
on the City of Toronto. Even if you are out of town, in another country,
overseas, please take the time to act in support of the TRIP Project.
International support is extremely necessary!

Send all emails to all of the following:

dting@toronto.ca - Dela Ting, Secretariat, Board of Health AIDS Grants
Review Panel

mayor_miller@toronto.ca - Mayor Miller

councillor_chow@toronto.ca

councillor_rae@toronto.ca

councillor_soknacki@toronto.ca

councillor_thompson@toronto.ca

councillor_watson@toronto.ca

councillor_mihevc@toronto.ca

councillor_pitfield@toronto.ca

councillor_carroll@toronto.ca

councillor_milczyn@toronto.ca

councillor_filion@toronto.ca

councillor_davis@toronto.ca

councillor_fletcher@toronto.ca

councillor_stintz@toronto.ca



Here is the text to be cut/pasted/sent out:

To whom it may concern,

The Toronto Raver Info Project (TRIP), run out of Queen West Community
Health Center (Central Toronto Community Health Centres) has been a
cornerstone of services to urban youth communities since 1995, providing
innovative peer-based health promotion including HIV prevention and
drug-related harm reduction.

Recently TRIP received the news that one of its two City funders for the
past nine years, the AIDS Prevention Program (APP) of Toronto Public Health,
has denied funding for TRIP’s peer-based youth outreach program – the very
foundation of TRIP’s services. Consequently, as of June 30th of this year,
TRIP will no longer be able to provide necessary health services to a large
community of young people unless community members, service providers and
decision-makers mobilize to oppose APP/Toronto Public Health’s decision to
abandon funding and in effect, shut the TRIP project down.

Here are some things you need to know about TRIP, to understand the
devastating impact this funding cut will have on the health and wellness of
youth as well as the city’s network of youth service-providers:

*TRIP is the only organization in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) to provide
services to young people at dance music events, clubs, and other late-night
venues.

*TRIP’s outreach activities include the provision of onsite harm reduction
information and supplies (needles, condoms, lube, earplugs); basic
counseling and referrals; crisis intervention; the monitoring of community
trends and behaviours with respect to drug use, sexual risk-taking and safer
party environments; as well as generating awareness on current issues
affecting the community.

*In the past year, TRIP has provided onsite outreach services at over 50
parties, with over 5000 partyers accessing TRIP’s onsite services directly
(with many more accessing TRIP’s information in an indirect manner), and
distributed over 22 500 condoms.

*In the past year, TRIP’s needle exchange has been more active than in any
of its previous year’s running, Shockingly, as indicated in TRIP’s most
recent community survey, those who inject their substances also say that
they do share injection equipment among other users. Now, TRIP will no
longer be able to provide needle exchange services at events, nor further
investigate and address this issue.

*Innumerable organizations across the City rely on the information provided
by TRIP on issues youth, drug use, and sexual health. TRIP is in a prime
position to provide the most up-to-date information as they are on the
frontlines each and every weekend, and are consistently monitoring trends
and behaviours in the late-night dance music scene.

*In a recent community survey conducted by TRIP (June 03 – Dec 03), 63% of
respondents indicate that s/he engages in sex with multiple partners, with
30% of respondents using condoms ‘some of the time’. Further, an astounding
20% of respondents engage in group sex, with only 24% indicating that s/he
changes condoms in between partners. Finally, 53% of all survey respondents
say that they are interested in continuing to receive sex education, with
another 53% interested in receiving this information from a community health
project such as TRIP.

THE ABOVE SPEAKS TO THE NEED FOR CONTINUED SEXUAL HEALTH AND HARM REDUCTION
INFORMATION AND SERVICES WITHIN THE LATE-NIGHT DANCE MUSIC SCENE.

Providing appropriate, timely and practical information to youth, to which
they actually respond to, is a challenge that TRIP has met with unusual
success. Harm reduction groups worldwide have modeled themselves after TRIP.
Again, it is the only program in the GTA to provide services on location at
clubs and late night dance events.

Denying funding for TRIP’s outreach activities will cripple the foundation
of TRIP and effectively shut it down. Furthermore, it is in direct
opposition to the City of Toronto’s recommendations to support
community-based harm reduction outreach to youth, which came out of the
inquest into the fatal drug overdose of Toronto youth Allan Ho. It is
therefore a drastic step backward in creating safer environments for youth
to be in.

We as a community ask that this issue be addressed immediately, and that
funding for the TRIP project be reinstated. We ask that the health and
safety of young people in Toronto be at the forefront of the City’s agenda.
We demand that our voices be heard, and that our right to health, safety,
and the services that support our lifestyles be respected.

In outrage,



_______________________________________________________





Thank you greatly for taking the time to read this!
Peace (and action),

Erin Lewis, TRIP! Project Coordinator
& all of our amazing workers and volunteers

www.torontoraverinfoproject.ca
(1) 416-703-8482x125
elewis@ctchc.com

For further information on the recommendations that came out of the inquest
into Allan Ho’s death, please visit:
http://www.city.toronto.on.ca/drugcentre/ravewise/inquestrecom.htm

For a list of Toronto City Counselors, please visit:
http://app.toronto.ca/im/council/councillors.jsp

For further information on this issue please visit:
http://www.torontoraverinfoproject.ca