Gathering – gayhealth.sg

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Celebrating Christmas and welcoming New Year 2016

December 30, 2015/0 Comments/in Community, Events, Feature, Programmes/by MSM Manager

I will like to thank all of you who are looking at this article, thank you for visiting our webpage and liking us on Facebook.

Wishing everyone Happy New Year and making it better for 2016!

Signing off,
Alex.

A Time to Celebrate with our Family

December 22, 2014/0 Comments/in Community, Events, Feature, Frontpage Article, News, Programme/by MSM Manager

Christmas is a time to celebrate with our loved ones. We hosted our first Christmas party organised by our volunteers and held at AfA. We wanted to thank all the volunteers and new friends who came on Dec.22,2014 to exchange gifts, laughter and revel in each other’s company. May you all have a safe holiday and wish you the best for the coming New Year! From your MSM Programme staff (Avin, Alex and Daniel).

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Dining in the Dark

July 30, 2014/0 Comments/in Community, Programmes/by MSM Manager

By : Yee Jun Ming

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Last evening’s ‘Dining In The Dark’ conducted by SAVH was a most interesting and fun experience.

We were introduced about the association and then briefed about the dinner event. Then we were slowly led into a dark room and to our seat at the table where it was completely pitch black, total darkness.

I was beginning to feel claustrophobic and uncomfortable from the lack of vision but told myself to calm down and relax. We realised that without sight, we were somehow talking louder. Strange. Haha.

Then I orientated myself, finding out who was seated beside me “Stop touching me, Daniel! I already told you Gabriel!”, I said giggling; and I felt around the table setting in front of me; mentally taking note about the placements of things.

We were then served a bowl of delicious mushroom soup. How did I know it was mushroom? It was luringly aromatic. Haha. I held the bowl in my hand and thought to myself ‘Ok, how are you going to do this, Gabriel? Spoon it or sip it from the bowl? Well no one would know what you do.’ Haha! So I placed the bowl down on the table and felt for my soup spoon; and I carefully spooned the soup and successfully placed it straight in my mouth. ‘Yes! I did it!’, I thought to myself. Haha. But then hearing that others are sipping their soup from the bowl, I decided to follow suit. Haha! Strange experience, without sight, I was actually able to fully enjoy the soup and taste every delicious bit of it. I finished it with much appreciation. Just as I and a few others were done with our soup, we were told that they’re going to serve bread which would go very well with the soup, ‘Damn, I just finished my soup. Guess I have to eat the bread on it’s own’, I groaned. It’s okie. Haha.

The server cleared our empty bowls and then served our main course. I chose a tomato-based vegetarian spaghetti. Again, I felt around my plate to orientate myself and then thought to myself ‘Hmm… How do I eat this without creating a mess? I wish I chose chicken chop instead, just poke with a fork and eat it straight.’. Haha. But being vegetarian, there was no other option. However, after hearing how difficult it was for some to eat their chicken chop ( which came with coleslaw and mash), I was glad I had a simple spaghetti. Hahaha. Carefully twirling the noodles with my fork and the aid of a spoon, I ate slowly and carefully, keeping in mind not to make a mess; and constantly wiping my mouth with the napkin. ‘Glad I’m wearing black’, I thought to myself. Haha. When I thought I was done with the noodles, I used the spoon to scoop around the plate to make sure I finish the sauce too. I really wanted to show my appreciation by making an effort not to waste any food. And the funny thing was, without sight, it didn’t bother me at all if the food looked appetising or not. I just happily ate what I was given. Haha. There’s a lesson to be learned. Haven’t quite put it to words yet. Haha.

We were told that our plates would be left at the table so we can later see how we faired. Fun. Haha. Eating in the dark felt alright by now. I placed the fork and spoon nicely on the plate and waited for dessert to be served.

Ice-cream! We could smell strawberry-flavoured ice-cream, then some tasted chocolate. It was kinda exciting. Haha. “Mine is strawberry!”, I exclaimed gleefully. But half way through, I tasted chocolate. Haha. Then a friend said “Must be Neapolitan!”. Hahaha. And some of us decided to lick our ice-cream goblet coz no one could see us anyways. lol

Then coffee/tea was served. Again, I carefully held the tea cup and saucer from the server and placed it next to my empty dinner plate. We were then told that sugar and creamer would be passed around and I thought to myself ‘Oh dear. How am I going to do that? Maybe I should just have my tea without sugar or creamer’. Haha. But then I thought I should challenge myself and see if I can do it with ease. So I took a sachet of creamer (no sugar for me, that’s how I like my tea. Really. Haha.), tore it open carefully and poured it in my tea. Gave it a few stirs with the teaspoon and then showly sipped and enjoyed my tea. Everything was done with extra caution and calculation. Haha.

Oh there was water and juice which we had to pour ourselves if we wanted. We had to pass the jug around and when pouring into our glass, we were told to stick a finger in the glass to gauge how much we poured. I did it without spilling. Yaay! Haha.
When the whole dinner was done, they turned on the lights and we could all see how neat or messy everyone was. It was hilarious. Some had food and spills all over the place. Haha. But I was proud that I did well. See attached photo, not bad eh? Kekeke.
By the way, the servers were visually impaired. Big kudos to them for being able to serve all of us without hiccups. They’re awesome!

The whole unique experience was a very fruitful one for me. I had a great time with old and new friends. I was reminded not to take things for granted and to be more appreciative. An evening of blindness was really interesting and fun, but a lifetime of blindness is a different thing altogether. Living in a world of darkness can be rather scary and dangerous. It takes great courage and a strong and positive attitude for a blind person to live through daily. I have much admiration for them. And I feel very blessed to have all my senses working. Very grateful for the experience.

You should all go experience it too. Do your bid for charity, for them, for yourself.

First published on The Bear Project Facebook page on July 26,2014

Courtesy of

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HIV Refresher / Movie Night

July 14, 2014/0 Comments/in Programmes/by MSM Manager

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To all the participants who made it to our HIV refresher course, a huge thank you.

The HIV Refresher workshop that was conducted on Saturday July 12, 2014, was meant for us to learn from each other through knowledge sharing and it addresses topics such as basic

HIV knowledge, understanding the steps to reduce the risks of getting HIV and HIV testing.

Many people regard HIV/AIDS with much fear and our workshops aim to dispel some of these myths associate with it, making the topic, approachable, and manageable. One of the interesting question that got everybody confused was “Having many sex partners increases your chance of getting HIV even though you are using condoms.” The answer to this question was not meant to be straightforward, true or false, but to let us reflect on the preconceived notion of people who have multiple sex partners.

Sometime it just takes one partner to be infected. The social judgement prevents people from having open dialogs about sex, preventive measures and HIV. Yet sex (for most) is an integral part of the community and gayhealth.sg being a sex positive platform and thus, we believe that it’s not how many, but how you have sex that counts.

We ended the workshop by watching a Hong Kong film about a couple who have to make tough decisions about their relationship when one got infected with HIV.

Our result: 15 participants with over 95% increased basic knowledge of HIV.

Connect with our Facebook or Twitter and receive updates for future workshops.

Potluck Gathering

June 24, 2014/0 Comments/in Programmes/by MSM Manager

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The event was held on Saturday June 14 2014 for our volunteers and guests. We were very please with the turn out and managed to show our new guests about one aspect of our programme. We hope to make this potluck a regular event for the MSM programme volunteers, and for new members to be introduced to the programme and organisation.

gayhelath.sg maintains all rights to these photos

If you see a photo that should not be here, a photo of you that you would like us to remove, drop us a mail with the link or title of the photo.