Category: News from Member Organisations

Aksion Plus spring activities

Posted on by Milutin

As a partner on the project “Strengthening NGO capacity and promoting public health and human rights oriented drug policy in South Eastern Europe”, DPNSEE member ogranisation Aksion Plus implemented activities. 
In March 2018, in the cooperation with ASHR (Regional Health Authority), a service was provided for performing Hepatitis B & C and HIV/AIDS testing for drug users and LGBTI population who receive services at the Aksion Plus Center. The purpose was a health examination aimed at referring to the relevant instances to provide the necessary medical assistance.

Following that, they organised the meeting with drug users in the city of Elbasan at the Methadone Dispensing Center. During this discussion, the conversation was about the problems encountered by drug users in this city. The issues discussed were around the topics related to and focused on getting more detailed information about methadone use, its impact and the facilities offered to users to receive this service. Based on the latest Harm Reduction Manual printed last year, the techniques of harm reduction were discussed with the participants, as well the new projects that Aksion Plus intends to implement in the future about the use of drugs.

Conclusions of the meeting were that they, as the key population, should be more active and supported to self organise so as to be able to communicate with local authorities in order to advocate for more services, chances of employment, better access to health structures, etc. In addition, all participants at the meeting were informed about the current project that Aksion Plus has undertaken in collaboration with a law office. This initiative aims to provide free legal aid to drug users.

One of the problems highlighted during the meeting was discrimination in institutions and employment opportunities. For this reason, we discussed encouraging cooperation between them to demand respect for their rights. Of course with the support of Aksion Plus.

Petition of the Greek NGO PLATFORM for psychoactive substances

Posted on by Milutin

The member-organizations of the NGO PLATFORM for psychoactive substances filed a petition that was followed by a related memorandum to the Greek Minister of Health, Mr. A. Xantho requesting for a robust, fair, substantial, accredited and legally established participation of the civil society, including members of the community of people who used drugs, in the process of planning, implementing and evaluating the national drug policy. Despite the multitude of relevant European and international recommendations, that practice is not always deemed obvious or essential.

The Platform requests to participate in the work-process of national drug policy-making within the national planning and coordinating commission with one regular member and one alternate. They believe that their long-standing experience, the high level of our expertise and comprehensive engagement in the fields of drug policy and psychoactive substances justify such a decision.

The petition is available following this link>>>
The original Greek version is available following this link>>>

Youth of SEE on YODA Workshops 2018

Posted on by Milutin

Within Youth Organisations for Drug Action in Europe, the network of European organisations that have a specific scope of activities devoted to young people at risk, youth representatives from DPNSEE member organisations Aksion Plus, HOPS, Juventas and Re Generation spent two weeks  in Eastern Europe, cities of Warsaw and Kiev, on a study visit within the capacity building workshops. On this set of workshops, YODA network members from 8 European countries participated, those that work on the ground offering harm reduction and health services to those who need it, often the most marginalised and stigmatised youth in our societies.

The study visit consisted of different classroom workshops, including the variety of site visits, all covering topics such as cross-substance use, LGBT health, drug checking, problematic use and harm reduction related to young people.

Džoli Ulićević from our member organisation Juventas said for the YODA blog that the opportunity to attend YODA training in Warsaw was very valuable to him, especially in the terms of getting insight into the practical part of work of PREKURSOR Drop in Centre and Foundation for Social Education mobile unit (Warsaw Mobile Units, video).  He said also that the exchange of experience and knowledge with more experienced activists in harm reduction programs improved his skills in harm reduction and provided him with many ideas which can be implemented in Montenegro regarding harm reduction for young people using drugs, specially within some vulnerable groups, such as young LGBTIQ people, sex workers or people who are members of ethnic minorities.

The site visits in Warsaw included also ES-SIN after party project and discussion on harm reduction in young people using drugs problematically), FES mobile HIV/AIDS/HEP C/STI testing point.

In Kiev the group visited Club Eney, self-help group and drop-in centre, LGBT community, testing centre and Convictus centre.

 

Vladana Stepanović, former DPNSEE volunteer and Re Generation member, said that in addition to organisations group visited in Ukraine, we heard that there more organizations which are in some way dealing with the issues related to drug use and support to drug users. That shows serious understanding of the problems regarding public health and human rights situation.

“What we have seen and learned there we should advocate to our countries, more specifically Western Balkans and Serbia, emphasizing that even Ukraine, in the complicated political situation, can find way to support harm reduction services as one of the key answers to prevention of Hep C and HIV. At the same time, in Serbia and specifically Belgrade with approx. 10.000 injecting drug users, we don’t have any organization offering any kind of harm reduction services.”

The third session of the workshops will start on 11 May 2018 in Podgorica, Montenegro, hosted by our member organisation Juventas. Over three days, the workshop will tackle homeless youth and focus more on organizational and ethical aspects of working with young homeless people and protection of human and social rights of young homeless people who use drugs.

Mapping services supporting drug users in Athens

Posted on by Milutin

According to recent estimations, around 30.000 people coming from vulnerable populations, including drug users, live in Athens. The lack of effective monitoring systems and related data regarding the actual numbers of these populations, and the insufficient communication and cooperation among service providers, leads to overlapping services, barriers to access in prevention, healthcare, harm reduction and therapeutic services and poor management of human and financial resources.

To contribute to solving this serious problem, Diogenis is building a mobile app as an interactive tool for street-workers and professionals working in the field of drugs. This tool will contribute in the best dissemination of information regarding the available governmental and NGO services for drug users and other vulnerable populations, and also help street-workers provide direct linkage to healthcare, prevention, harm reduction, therapeutic services, information on emergency issues and holistic support to drug users.

This is an example of a crowd funding campaign – a method that many civil society organisations is using recently to generate fund.

Greece adopted the law on medicinal cannabis

Posted on by Milutin

On March 1st 2018, the Greek Parliament adopted the bill “Provisions for the Production of end products of medicinal cannabis”. The Standing Committee on Social Affairs discussed the draft law at two meetings of the committee and organized a hearing in the Greek Parliament with participation of patient organizations, drug service providers, representatives of the scientific community, agricultural trade unions and civil society organizations. An extensive debate took place in Parliament’s plenary, which ended with the adoption of the bill. The majority of the Parliament voted in favour of the bill.

Thanasis Apostolou, General Director of Diogenis – Drug Policy Dialogue, writes about this important development in a document you can find here.

HIV and TB Prevention in Sofia and Bulgaria

Posted on by Milutin

“HIV and TB Prevention in Sofia and Bulgaria – Assessment of the Situation” is a report that was created under the project “Fast-track TB/HIV responses for key populations in EECA cities”. It is a regional project funded by the Global Fund, which unites the efforts of five EECA cities (Almaty, Beltsi, Odesa, Sofia and Tbilisi) to achieve sustainable city-level policies for prevention of HIV and TB. The project is coordinated by the Ukraine Alliance for Public Health. In Sofia, Bulgaria, the local coordinators are Initiative for Heath Foundation and Association “Health without Borders”.

The main objective of the report is to bring together all the available information regarding the prevention of HIV and TB in Sofia and Bulgaria and to provide it to the decision makers. The report should be used as a base for the development of a Sofia city strategy on HIV and TB, which has not been developed so far.

The evaluation was conducted in the period July – September 2017 through: analysis of data provided by the Ministry of Health and experts of the Sofia Municipality and the National Centre for Addictions; analysis of documents and previous reports; qualitative methods (interviews and focus groups with vulnerable communities and professionals); mapping of services. The results outline the gaps in service provision related to the withdrawal of the Global Fund and confirm the need of an adequate national and city responses. The book is an author’s interpretation of the data gathered through the common assessment methodology of the project.

Full report in Bulgarian and a summary in English can be found at:
http://www.initiativeforhealth.org/blog/2017/12/12/nov-doklad-s-otsenka-na-nuzhdite/

Another good news from Bulgaria is that on 21 December 2017 the City Council of Sofia adopted the new members of the Municipal Committee on prevention and control of HIV/AIDS. With this act the municipality practically re-established the Committee and gave it a new start, after few years of inaction. The Committee will consist of representatives of the City Council of Sofia, municipal administration, other relevant state and municipal institutions and NGOs.

The first meeting of the new Committee is planned for January when it is expected to give start to the development of a city HIV strategy.

The act of the re-establishment of the Committee was intensively supported through the partnerships within the project Fast-track TB/HIV responses for key populations in EECA cities, involving coordinating NGOs in Sofia and the representatives of the key populations networks.

The LADDER project was concluded, and Diogenis was part of it!

Posted on by Milutin

The final conference of project LADDER was held in Strasbourg on 21 – 22 November 2017, and constituted a key opportunity to create new bonds and strengthen existing partnerships for the localisation of SDGs in the next years.

The conference marked three years of joint work within an extremely ambitious project, co-funded by the European Union and led by ALDA, gathering 27 partners and 19 associates from 19 EU and 17 non EU-countries. The unanimous commitment to continue the great work done so far in the field of development education is a great satisfaction for all of us, as well as the sign of LADDER’s sustainability.

The event, hosted by the Council of Europe and by the Region Grand Est, was opened by the welcome speech of Antonella Valmorbida, Secretary General of ALDA, and Alina Tatarenko, Head of the Centre of Expertise for Local Government Reform of the Council of Europe.

Diogenis actively participated in both the program and its final meeting. The project that was implemented in Athens and Thessaloniki by Diogenis last May, entitled “Drugs & SDGs: Development and Harm Reduction Policies”, under the auspices of the municipalities of Agios Dimitrios, Athens and Thessaloniki, accounted for the highest graduation rate during the evaluation of proposals due to its innovative approach.

The Strasbourg meeting, in addition to the project review, included work in groups, aimed at demonstrating and making proposals to local governments, on new actions to implement SDGs at the local level with the active involvement of civil society organizations.

Treatment and Harm reduction services in the context of the economic crisis

Posted on by Milutin

DPNSEE member organisations Diogenis organised conference “Treatment and Harm reduction services in the context of the economic crisis, developments and challenges” from 19 to 21 October 2017 in Nicosia, Cyprus. The conference aimed to provide knowledge about the developments and challenges concerning
treatment and harm reduction services in the context of the economic crisis in countries of South
and South East Europe and to discuss possibilities which can guarantee the continuity, quality and
further development of services.

This conference is part of the project “New Approaches in harm reduction policies and practices”, financially supported by the European Commission. Transnational Institute from The Netherlands is the lead organisation of the project and partners are Diogenis, Drug Policy Dialogue from Greece, Forum Droghe from Italy and the International Centre for Ethnobotanical Education from Belgium.

Issues discussed at the conference included:

  • The way in which the competent authorities and the responsible service providers reacted to the economic crisis; the role of Civil Society Organisations in this respect and the lessons learned for securing the continuation of harm reduction and treatment services to drug users.
  • Strategies and action plans for effective harm reduction advocacy at the national level.
  • Developments on cannabis policy in South and South East Europe countries. Regulation of cannabis for medical purposes.
  • Decriminalisation of drug possession for personal use.
  • Supervised consumption sites.
  • Recent developments in countries of South and South East Europe.

The conference also paid attention to the new EU Action plan on drugs 2017-2020 and the developments in drug policy on the international level.

Diogenis cooperated with researchers from different countries, who were responsible to conduct interviews based on a research questionnaire and summarize the outcomes of these interviews in a related short report. All reports were collected and presented in a paper which was the background of the discussion at the conference.

Participants were representatives of civil society, national agencies and experts from 12 European countries. They had the opportunity to exchange information, good practices and policies on drugs in their countries as well as Europe-wide, amid economic difficulties and social challenges in Europe.

Social inclusion of most at-risk youth in the Western Balkans Region

Posted on by Milutin

The EU funded project ARYSE (At-Risk Youth Social Empowerment), implemented in 6 Western Balkans countries aims to contribute to achievement of social inclusion of most At-Risk Youth at the regional level, by strengthening CSOs capacities, regional/national cooperation and advocacy actions. The specific objective of the action is to support equal access to education, employment, justice and other related fields to most At-Risk Youth in the Balkan countries, by fostering the level of active participation and inclusion of CSOs representing young people in decision making and reform processes.

The project partners are ARSIS (Albania), Association Margina (Bosnia and Herzegovina), HOPS (Macedonia), Juventas (Montenegro), NGO Labyrinth (Kosovo), Prevent (Serbia) and SHL Foundation from Germany that has a role of consultant.

Topics that the project addresses include

    • Youth from families with history of drug use and/or conflict with law
    • Street youth
    • Youth who use drugs
    • Youth in conflict with law
    • Youth without parental care
    • Young Roma

    The training mainly organised to provide material for future procedures and guidelines is being held in Skopje, Macedonia, from 15 to 18 October 2017. Experts – Nevena Nikolić, Vlatko Dekov, Dardan Berisha, Jarmila Bujak Stanko, Violeta Kola, dr Meliha Bijedić, dr Anita Burgund and Katarina Mitić – prepared draft standards for specific topics of the project.

     

    More about the project is available at the website HERE>>>