Eight months into our project submitted to The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, we are celebrating achievements.

We held the first workshop of RedTraSex in the framework of the mentioned project, involving 30 fellows from 15 countries of the regional network of female sex workers. For a week we analyze the capacities assessment we made during the last four months of work in order to develop —in the workshop in Peru— the first drafts of the Organizational Development and Technical Support plans of the organizations of our network.

The fact that all organizations know clearly their current situation and can make plans about their next steps, prioritizing urgent and important issues to work from diagnoses, is a key milestone for the network and for the project.

Worldwide, one of the most effective strategies in the fight against HIV is prevention starting from the same groups considered vulnerable, but this is only possible when these groups are strong enough to influence in policies and programs that benefit them. Precisely, our project aims to improve the capabilities of all organizations of female sex workers of RedTraSex to constitute a real ally in the efforts of national and international HIV prevention in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Years of organization and work show us that effort was worth, and is worth. There is still a long way to go, but no one can get us out of our convictions: we are the protagonists of this history, our history.

We know that we are contributing to make this world a place where human rights of sex workers are respected, where we can live a life free of violence, with comprehensive care of our health, without stigma or discrimination. To there we go.