MpowerSTL / Project ARK

Project ARK’s Mpowerment Project (also called MPOWERSTL) is an evolving project dedicated to empowering and mobilizing St. Louis’ young gay and bisexual male community.

MPOWERSTL hosts a number of free events for younger Gay/Bi guys and transwomen in St. Louis. While some of our events are education-based, most of them are about being social — and all of them are designed to be a lot of fun!

These events are not only great places to meet guys and have a good time: they're also opportunities to volunteer and get involved in your community!

We try to focus on the entire "gay experience," not just the bar/club scene, and we're all about helping guys maintain healthy minds, bodies, and relationships. If you want to get involved, we have something that is PERFECT for you.

Guiding Principles include:

• Combining HIV prevention education/skills building opportunities with fun and engaging social activities to ensure young men attend Mpowerment events, learn about and get tested for HIV and STIs.
• Young gay and bisexual men want to learn from their peers.
• It is essential to build a young gay and bisexual men’s community where there is support for healthy sexual behaviors, routine HIV and STI testing, and the identities for all persons on the gender and sexual orientation continuum.
• Young men take ownership of Mpowerment project activities
• Young men are most likely to start preventing the acquisition of HIV and STIs (i.e. using condoms, reducing the number of sex partners), and get tested regularly when they see and hear that their peers using HIV/STI prevention tools and getting tested regularly.
• The Mpowerment project enriches and strengthens young gay and bisexual men’s pride about who they are, and encourages them to explore and celebrate their sexuality by not just focusing on condom use but by including a wide variety of safer sex behaviors.
• The Mpowerment project should use a combination of events and activities in order to address the variety of issues (i.e. self-esteem, homophobia, stigma, substance use) that cause young men to engage in sexual behaviors that increase their HIV/STI vulnerability and/or chose not to get tested for HIV/AIDS and STDs.
• We are always creating new ways for young gay and bisexual men to come together, meet, socialize, have fun, and learn.