The training for civil society organisations in Montenegro was the third in raw, to complete the serial of trainings organised in the project countries. It was held in Podgorica from 3 to 5 October 2018.
More info coming soon!
Media coverage from the PR Centre is available following this link>>>
Association Prevent and Drug Policy Network SEE organized a three-day training “Advocacy of Budgetary Financing of the Harm Reduction Programs in Serbia” from 25 to 27 September at Mt. Avala, near Belgrade. The training was attended by 16 representatives of organizations: Bečej Youth Association, Timok Youth Center, Policy Analysis and Policy Creation Group, Association Remiks, Association Prevent and DPNSEE. The training was led by experts from Macedonia’s Healthy Options Project Skopje and ESE.
The training included general information and practical steps in the advocacy and monitoring process. In addition, Dr Jasmina Tanasić from the Standing Conference of Cities and Municipalities presented the Budget programming model used in the country.
A one-year budget support plan for harm reduction program in Serbia was prepared. According to the plan, in the forthcoming period an analysis of the budget of the Republic of Serbia (Ministry of Health, alcohol and tobacco excise, income from games of chance and opportunity) will be carried out and 4 projects by 4 organizations on the following topics:
DPNSEE member organisation Juventas opened a Call for small grants to support the implementation of civil society organisations’ projects for the improvement of social inclusion of at risk children and youth in Montenegro, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Kosovo and Serbia.
The Call is announced under the “ARYSE (At Risk Youth Social Empowerment)” project, supported by the European Union and implemented by NGO Juventas (Montenegro), the project coordinator, with the partner organisations: ARSIS (Albania), Association MARGINA (Bosnia and Herzegovina), HOPS (Macedonia), Labyrinth (Kosovo), Prevent (Serbia) and SHL Foundation (Germany). The project beneficiaries are children and youth, especially at risk youth (children and youth who use drugs, who are in conflict with the law, who come from families who use drugs and/or are in conflict with the law, who are without parental care, as well as street and Roma children and youth). The project is being implemented under the Civil Society Facility and Media Programme 2014-2015.
The specific objectives of the open call for small grants are:
To be eligible for this Small Grant Call the applicant must fulfil the following requirements:
Full information about the Call is available following this link>>>> while the application package is available here>>>>
Just after the Training for national consultancy teams, Grand hotel in Sarajevo hosted the Training for civil society organisations in Bosnia Herzegovina from 5 to 7 September 2018. This was the first of three national trainings for civil society organisations as part of the Budget Advocacy and Monitoring in countries of South East Europe project.
The training included general information and practical steps in the advocacy process: identifying the issue and causes of the problem, research and budget analysis, stakeholders and advocacy targets, influencing budgets at national and municipal levels, mapping budget information and documents, planning, taking actions, monitoring, anti-corruption, reviewing, evaluation and learning.
Participants came from organisations working in both entities of the country – The Federation of Bosnia Herzegovina and Republic of Srpska: Margina from Tuzla and Zenica, Viktorija from Banja Luka, Proi, Partnership for Health and Asocijacija XY from Sarajevo.
The training was delivered by Darko Antikj from ESE and Vlatko Dekov from HOPS who have developed the model and successfully implemented it in Macedonia.
The training resulted in producing a national plan of action to be implemented by the end of 2019. It includes creating a platform of NGOs for sustainability of harm reduction services, ensuring political support, creation of a budget line in the health budget of the entities of the country, establishing a social contracting mechanism and agreeing on criteria and standards for the services.
Diogenis – Drug Policy Dialogue has the honour of being a Bravo! Sustainable Awards 2018 candidate, in the category Bravo Society with the action “SDGs and Drugs: Policies for Development and Harm Reduction” that was implemented in the period 1/12/2016 – 31/5/2017, under the LADDER program.
For the 8th consecutive year, the Bravo Initiative opens up a large social dialogue on sustainable development with a wide range of social partners and active citizens. The initiative is a systematic social dialogue based on the sustainable development goals developed in Greece by businesses, local governments and civil society organizations. Initiatives and programs should promote the improvement of quality of life and the development of standards of responsible behaviour at a collective and individual level in Greece. In order to create a wider culture of Sustainable Development, Responsible Entrepreneurship and Social Responsibility issues, the Bravo Dialogue Institution is developing a platform for dialogue, information and open consultation with the participation of a large group of Social Partners.
You can see the action description, the 7 SDGs associated with it and post your vote following this link>>>
Several activities took place as part of this year’s “Support. Don’t Punish” campaign in Macedonia, among which central was a Public debate on recreational drug use and harm reduction.
In preparation for the debate, informational flyers were prepared; containing information on most commonly used drugs in Macedonia in recreational settings, as well as advises on harm reduction and rights. An event page was created and promoted on Facebook, and the event was announced via the media.
The Public debate took place on 26 June 2018. Dr. Davor Smilanov (HOPS’s collaborator) moderated the debate, while the discussion panel was composed of Dr. Darko Kostovski (psychiatrist), Ivana Dragshich (sociologist and activist) and Dragana Drndarevska (lawyer and activist). Around 50 people attended the event. They had the chance to purchase t-shirts and bags prepared by the HOPS’s creative workshop, the funds from which were donated back to the workshop towards its sustainability. In addition, the debate was streamed live (and later posted) on HOPS’s page, reaching about 1.200 views (https://www.facebook.com/hops.org/videos/1259588700811262/). The conclusions from the debate were shared via HOPS’s communication channels, with special focus on laws and practices that criminalize drug use and their adverse effect on individual rights, health and other aspects of living.
The campaign concluded during D-Fest (music festival that took place 6-8 July 2018), where HOPS’s team had an informational stand, organized educational workshops and hosted creative workshops, all with the purpose to inform attendants about effects of different drugs, strategies for harm reduction, as well as individual rights.
Media coverage of the campaign:
After a year without the campaign, the Initiative for Health Foundation added Sofia to the list of participating cities in 2018.
The Foundation engaged a professional reporter to explain the content of the campaign, its story around the world and in Bulgaria. The article was published in the web-site and FB of Initiative for Health Foundation (where the article reached primarily 531 persons), in the web-portal of the Bulgarian non-governmental organizations NGOBG and in 4 online media.
A photo-frame for profile pictures was developed and distributed in Facebook for people who would support the campaign.
In addition, 80 t-shirts were produced with the campaign logo and were distributed during 4 events of Initiative for Health Foundation in the period 31 May – 26 June 2018: one public discussion, one networking seminar and two trainings.
On Tuesday, 26th July 2018, the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, the NGO ReGeneration, in cooperation with the Belgrade night club Drugstore, organized an event as part of the Support. Don’t Punish campaign. The event, starting at 8 PM, was held in the Drugstore night club in Belgrade; the stand was placed in the lobby, next to the door leading to the main area, and opposite it, in front of the coat check, was displayed new informative material on the most common psychoactive substances and acute health issues the consumption there of could result in. A large poster of the campaign, in front of which visitors could, if they so wished, be photographed by members of ReGeneration’s with the Support. Don’t Punish logo as an act of support, was also placed in the lobby. Also, those who wished to could complete a short questionnaire regarding the usage of (new) psychoactive substances prepared by our team.
The visitors could then enter the main club area, where our guest Marko Milosavljević was the DJ support. To the backdrop of Marko’s music, the rest of the event passed in informal socialization and discussion. In casual conversation, the guests and visitors from various countries and of various educational profiles – anthropologists, healthcare professionals, psychologists, artist, etc. – touched upon many issues regarding the consumption of PAS and NPAS among the youth not just in Serbia and the region but globally as well, such as legislature, public policy, harm reduction strategies and public and media discourse on (N)PAS consumption. ReGeneration is determined to continue the tradition of organizing different events on the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking with the goal of raising awareness and informing the general public.
Support Don’t Punish objectives were also promoted on the Pride Parade in Belgrade, by the Re Generation and YODA members. As Pride Parade had the topic of HIV prevention, we though it is important to support members of other vulnerable populations in fight against discrimination and stigmatization of all of us.
Before and after the event NGO Re Generation representatives were also present in media presented the goals of the Support Don’t Punish Global campaign to general public in addition to campaign that was recent initiated, as an answer to death of three young persons, related to the use of psychoactive substances, that inspired Re Generation to even more and bit aggressive advocate for the harm reduction programs in the recreational settings. #DAZNAMŠTARADIM is the campaign aiming to support and push for the implementation of nightlife outreach programs as a necessity.
Links to media coverage:
Re Genration blog: https://regeneracija.blogspot.com/2018/06/daznamstaradim.html?m=1
TV N1 Morning show: http://rs.n1info.com/Comment/StandardComment/789181/Vesti/Gosce- N1-Kultura-u-Srbiji-danas-podrzava-koriscenje-droga.html
TV Prva: http://www.prva.rs/web-tv/info/exploziv/41632/exploziv—25062018.html
The Support. Don’t Punish campaign in Tuzla, Bosnia Herzegovina started on 11 June 2018 with showing film “I want to wake up” three times for the population of high school students and three times for the population of students. The goal was to point out the problem of education of this population and reduce stigma and discrimination against drug users. In this way, the message and the global goals of the campaign was promoted and shared among young people.
Association Margina had an ambitious plan to hold a public debate and press conference “CANTONAL INSTITUTION FOR DISEASES – Why do we not have it?” as introductory event to the entire day of action on 26th of June where Bosnia and Herzegovina National Drug Strategy 2018 – 2023, Policy to reduce drug use damage in the Federation of Bosnia Herzegovina, Decisions of the Government and the Tuzla Canton Assembly on the establishment of the “Institute for Addiction of the Tuzla Canton” should have been presented. Unfortunately, this activity was cancelled, because just before the start of the entire campaign, health workers started striking, both to fight for their rights, but also due to poor conditions for patients. The strike escalated in a way that 1.370 doctors and more than 4.000 medical technicians locked in their dismissals.
Regardless of the cancelled public debate, Margina have drawn good lessons from this process, as a model of pressure and struggle for the human rights of professionals and patients in whose interests they work. In the upcoming period they plan a meeting or a series of them with the Health Workers Union, in order to try to organize joint activities to improve the quality of services for drug users.
Still, a street action was organised in the city of Tuzla, including disseminating promotional materials, meeting people and spreading information about the campaign and work of the association.
This year’s campaign NGO Prevent from Novi Sad, Serbia, started on June 11th by publishing a contest for the best short video on the topic “Support, Don’t Punish”. The idea is that a video needed to send a message that is consistent with key campaign messages. The best video has been awarded money prize.
The next step was the beginning of promoting infographics on social networks Facebook and Instagram Important data for use in the infographics were previously extracted and graphic designer was engaged to prepare layouts. The advantage of the infographics is that they are much more compact and easier to read than the text itself. People like this way of displaying data and this is the reason why this method is chosen. The first of a total of 5 infographics was promoted on June 18th.
On June 21st, Prevent begun to promote previously created Facebook profile picture frame, with the logo and campaign message. Those who set up this frame for 7 days, received symbolic gifts from the Prevent Association (game similar to “Don’t get angry, man” created by the Prevent members, which indicates dangers of using psychoactive substances).
On June 21st, the press release was sent about the action of the Prevent Association in Novi Sad, within the global campaign. On the same day, the news was posted on the Prevent site and Facebook ads were paid for better promotion of the event. The result was a good response from the media.
The action lasted from 17:00 to 20:00 on 26 June at the city beach “Štrand”. The “Selfie” photo cabin has succeeded in attracting a fairly large number of people, who also had the opportunity to be informed by members of the Association to Prevent and get promotional educational material.
