This weekend I joined two friends and walked in the Toronto AIDS Walk for Life.  Toronto has no shortage of runs for a cause — every couple of weeks I see one on my way to work on a Sunday morning.  There’s the CIBC Run for the Cure, the Super Cities Walk for MS…  Clearly, having a walk is the thing to do for health related causes.

They’re first and foremost a fundraiser.  Though the official numbers aren’t up on their site yet, the AIDS Committee of Toronto’s fundraising goal for the walk was more than $300,000, an amount totaling a small but established NGO’s annual revenue.

Walks like this one are also about awareness, and it’s this point that got me thinking.  Most recent trends in Toronto’s AIDS data suggest that new infections among women, through heterosexual contact and injecting drug use are “steadily increasing,” accounting for 21.9% of adult positive HIV test reports in Toronto.  Transmission in men who have sex with men accounts for less of the total transmission than it has in the past.  Was this changing face of AIDS in Toronto represented at this walk?

The walk started at Carleton and Church in the heart of Toronto’s Gayborhood, heading South onto Queen.  As we got closer to St. Micheal’s Hospital, a hub for HIV/AIDS care in the city (including testing, inpatient, and mental health services), we passed several homeless people sleeping on subway grates.  Although homelessness is associated with increased HIV risk, there seemed no acknowledgment of the links between the cheerful walkers’ cause and the sleeping individuals in our way.

But, when it comes down to it, ACT has a strong legacy of diverse projects against HIV/AIDS in Toronto and in the rest of the world.  So, even if one of its high-profile events didn’t seem to reflect the complexity of HIV issues in Toronto, it seems that the money raised will.