FemSMS: Pride Edition wins new grant for mental health support
We are delighted to share that FemSMS: Pride Edition — our trauma-informed text-message service for LGBTQIA+ New Yorkers navigating migration, exile, or displacement — has been awarded a grant from Destination Tomorrow through the LGBTQI+ Social Determinants of Health Mini-Grant Program, extending the current pilot that NYC Pride, Heritage of Pride has helped launch through Pride Gives Back earlier this year. This new grant will enable us to reach at least 200 LGBTQIA+ New Yorkers affected by migration, exile, or forced displacement — including Haitian and Caribbean communities newly joining the project — with compassionate, multilingual information on health, legal, housing, and gender-based violence support, addressing what research increasingly recognizes as a social determinant of health in its own right: the ability to find, understand, and act on trusted information at all. For a population where 80% of LGBTQIA+ asylum seekers screen positive for clinically significant me...