Grindr For Equality Award: The People Behind Progress

At AIDS 2026 in Rio de Janeiro, Grindr for Equality announced its biggest HIV prevention commitment yet: to connect 10 million LGBTQ+ people to HIV prevention by 2028.

The commitment comes at a critical moment. New data released by Grindr for Equality at the conference revealed a persistent divide between PrEP awareness and use, underscoring a challenge at the heart of the global HIV response: knowing about prevention does not mean being able to access it.

Closing that gap will take more than one organization or one solution. Progress happens because people imagine something better, challenge systems that are not working, build unlikely partnerships, and refuse to accept that where someone lives, or who they are, should determine their access to care.

That is why Grindr for Equality also honored six leaders and organizations who show what progress looks like in action.

As the inaugural Grindr for Equality Award recipients, they are creating new pathways to care, shifting power and resources toward communities, breaking down barriers to access, and building on decades of community-led change. 

Community Innovation Award
Recognizes organizations pioneering new ways to connect LGBTQ+ communities to care.

Red Somos
What if asking a question could become the first step toward care?

Based in Colombia, Red Somos developed an AI-powered chatbot on Grindr that lets users ask questions about HIV, PrEP, and mental health privately and anonymously before connecting directly with services. In one month, the chatbot generated 125 completed referrals and achieved a 62% referral conversion rate, showing how a conversation on an app can become a pathway to real care.

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Sustained Health Initiatives of the Philippines (SHIP)
Across the Philippines, distance, cost, stigma, and limited provider access can make HIV prevention difficult to navigate.

Through ANCHOR, its flagship program supported by Grindr for Equality, SHIP connects Filipino gay and bisexual men with comprehensive sexual and mental health services through the app. In one quarter, the program delivered nearly 300 TelePrEP appointments, almost four times its target, bringing trusted, community-led care closer to the people seeking it.

Systems Change Leadership Award
Honors leaders transforming the systems that shape access for communities.

Masen Davis
Progress is not only about creating new programs. Sometimes it requires changing who holds power, where resources flow, and whose leadership gets supported.

For nearly three decades, Masen Davis has advanced the health and human rights of LGBTQ+ people and communities affected by HIV from securing protections for transgender workers to strengthening support for trans-led movements. Today, as Executive Director of Funders Concerned About AIDS, he brings funders together to sustain the community leadership on which the global HIV response depends.

‍Dr. Andrea Boccardi Vidarte
Community organizations are often closest to the people most affected by HIV. Too often, they are expected to lead without the resources to match.

For more than two decades, Dr. Andrea Boccardi Vidarte has worked to change that. Now Director of UNAIDS Brazil, she has advanced community-led responses across Latin America and helped secure nearly $4 million for 35 civil society organizations, putting resources behind the communities driving progress.

Catalyst in Global Health Award
Recognizes leaders catalyzing transformative change in global health.

Dr. Othoman Mellouk
A medical breakthrough means little if the people who need it cannot access it.

Dr. Othoman Mellouk has spent more than 25 years confronting that reality. After helping establish one of the first HIV programs serving gay men in the Middle East and North Africa, he turned his attention to the policy and market barriers keeping medicines out of reach.

Through the Make Medicines Affordable campaign with the International Treatment Preparedness Coalition, his work now spans 24 countries helping ensure that advances in HIV treatment are matched by meaningful access.

Legacy in Global Health Award
Honors a lifetime of leadership advancing the global HIV response.

Kate Thomson
Long before community leadership became a principle of the global HIV response, people living with and affected by HIV had to fight to make it one. Kate Thomson helped build that movement.

Beginning in the 1980s, she helped establish organizations including Positively Women, the International Community of Women Living with HIV, the Global Network of People Living with HIV, and UN+. She later brought that same commitment to leadership roles at UNAIDS and the Global Fund, helping ensure communities were not simply consulted, but empowered to shape decisions.

Today, as Vice Chair of the Robert Carr Fund, she continues strengthening the community-led movements that transformed the global response. Kate did not simply contribute to that movement. She helped build the infrastructure on which it still stands.

The Work Continues
Our commitment is to connect 10 million LGBTQ+ people to HIV prevention. These six honorees remind us that reaching them will require all of us.

AIDS 2026 brought the global HIV community together for a few days. Conferences end. Movements do not.

The work continues and Grindr for Equality is committed to using our platform, partnerships, and reach to help move it forward.

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