LGBT charity wins national recognition

Illustrated rainbow pride flag on a pink background.

Trade Sexual Health in Leicestershire has won a national award from Lloyds Bank Foundation for their trailblazing work.

Despite only being a small organisation, Trade Sexual Health have been a example of how charities can lead change in policy and practice for the people they support.

Like many other charities, they offer a range of free and confidential support and advice including sexual health and HIV information, support in “coming out” and fully qualified counselling.

However, the East Midlands health charity have been fore fronting change in much more diverse areas.

One of their notable achievements was teaming up with statutory sexual health services to deliver sexual health checks in gay men’s saunas.

Without any local funding, the team managed to tackle undiagnosed HIV infections and reduce general health inequalities.

Sal Khalifa – a member of Trade Sexual Health – commented on winning the award: “It is a fantastic reflection on how a small LGBT Health charity like Trade can work collaboratively to champion change and make a difference to LGBT people’s lives.

“Trade will continue to ensure LGBT communities have quality, accessible and inclusive services. We are delighted to be awarded the East Midlands winner,” he continued.

“We are thankful to Lloyds Bank Foundation who have been instrumental in helping small charities such as Trade to support change in their local communities”

Trade Sexual Health have used the funding from the Lloyd’s bank foundation to create the first LGBT South Asian support service called Humsafar – providing support to South Asian communities in many areas in the East Midlands.

Since setting up Humsafar, the charity has seen a 100% increase in South Asian LGBT people accessing Trade services.