Tag: Bucharest

The South East Europe pre-Conference Meeting held in Bucharest

Posted on by Milutin

With the support from the Open Society Foundations, the Drug Policy Network South East Europe organised the South East Europe Meeting on 20 November in Bucharest, Romania, prior to the 4th European Harm Reduction Conference. The event aimed to get together activists working on harm reduction services, exchange experiences and promising ideas for the future, meet with international partners and discuss future opportunities for collaboration. 36 representatives of harm reduction organisations and institutions from countries of the region and from various international organisations attended this meeting: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Greece, Kosovo*, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia and Slovenia.

Nebojša Đurasović, Vice-President of the DPNSEE Board opened the Meeting with welcome note and agenda review and announced first session Where is South East Europe now? Sofia Galinaki from Diogenis, the member of the IDPC Members’ Advisory Council, moderated this session. She presented the results of the Harm Reduction Survey. Dragoş Roşca, Romanian Harm Reduction Network, continued this session and spoke about current situation in Romania, Denis Dadajić, from Margina, explained situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Silvana Naumova from HOPS, presented current situation in Macedonia.

Facilitating the second session What do we actually do?, DPNSEE Executive Director Milutin Milošević, reminded on some dilemmas, including those of quality in the times of transition and integrated services for all vs. those specific for key sub-populations. Ivica Cekovski from HOPS spoke about the concept of quality in Macedonia. The session continued with Dr Vera Kerleta-Tuzović, Agency for Healthcare Quality and Accreditation in FBiH who presented accreditation of drop-in centres Bosnia and Herzegovina and session was closed with Tomaž Koren, from Alliance of NGOs for Drugs and Addictions, from Slovenia, who talked about quality of services in Slovenia, with special view on harm reduction in nightlife and festival settings.

The pre-conference meeting continued with third session that was moderated by Jelena Čolaković, from the DPNSEE member organisation Juventas, Montenegro. The speakers crossed over specific topic Where do we go from here? and was centred around opportunities for collaboration, including a regional program on sustainability supported by the Global Fund. Vladan Golubovic, from Chairman sent a presentation about the Regional Coordinating Mechanism. Tetyana Deshko, from Alliance for Public Health presented upcoming Global Fund supported regional project “Sustainability of services for key populations in Eastern Europe and Central Asia region”. Then, Mišo Pejković from Cazas spoke about experiences in cooperation in the region. The session was closed by Amarildo Fecanji, from ERA, who talked about potential cooperation between the networks and organisations.

At the last session What else we need to talk about? Ganna Dovbakh from Eurasian Harm Reduction Association emphasized potentials for advocacy in the process of EU Enlargement on national level.

Closing the Meeting, Nebojša Đurasović thanked all for contributing to the Meeting which he found successful. He noted a very friendly and open atmosphere and hoped that the experiences and ideas presented will be a good basis for future cooperation and partnerships.

Photos: Snežana Šundić – Vardić and Sanja Đurasović

The 4th European Harm Reduction Conference in Bucharest

Posted on by Milutin

The 4th European Harm Reduction Conference, called for 21 to 23 November 2018 in Bucharest, Romania is organised by the Correlation Network in cooperation with Romanian partners and different European Networks and partners, such as Infodrug Switzerland, the European Network of People Who Use Drugs, the Eurasian Harm Reduction Association and the European Joint Action HA-REACT.

The conference will present the latest harm reduction research results, innovative and next best-thing practices, discuss drug policy including the need to scale up harm reduction services and provide an appropriate platform to create a link between national and European developments in drug policies and harm reduction.

The European Harm Reduction Conference is aimed at professionals that work in the areas of harm reduction, treatment, prevention, medicine, research, law enforcement and politics and, finally but importantly, drug user and community organisations.

With the support from the Open Society Foundations, the Drug Policy Network South East Europe will coordinate participation of South East Europe in the 4th European Harm Reduction Conference. Specific objectives of this project include:

 

  • Improve and extend partnerships in South East Europe
  • Provide organizational and logistic support to SEE representatives at the Conference
  • Organize a SEE side-event before EuroHRC
  • Support linking of the SEE participants with various networks, EU agencies etc.
  • Envisage and agree on models of long term co-operation in the region

The pre-conference South East Europe meeting will be held on 20 November. Aim of the event is to get together, exchange experiences and promising ideas for the future, meet with international partners and discuss future opportunities for collaboration. So far, 36 representatives of harm reduction organisations and institutions from all countries of the region and from various international organisations applied for the event.

More about the Conference is available at the website following this link>>>

European Harm Reduction Conference

Posted on by Milutin

Following recent conferences held in Marseille 2011, Basel and Amsterdam in 2014, the 4th European Harm Reduction Conference is called for 21 to 23 November 2018. The Conference will be held in Bucharest, Romania, in the National Library. It will be organised by the Correlation Network in cooperation with Romanian partners and different European Networks and partners, such as Infodrug Switzerland, the European Network of People Who Use Drugs, the Eurasian Harm Reduction Association and the European Joint Action HA-REACT.

The conference will present the latest harm reduction research results, innovative and next best-thing practices and discuss drug policy including the need to scale up harm reduction services. Last but not least, the conference provides an appropriate platform to create a link between national and European developments in drug policies and harm reduction.

The European Harm Reduction Conference is aimed at professionals that work in the areas of harm reduction, treatment, prevention, medicine, research, law enforcement, and politics and finally but importantly drug user and community organisations.

More about the Conference is available following this link>>>

DPNSEE is negotiating with the Open Society Foundations a project to ensure stronger participation of SEE representatives at the Conference.

Harm reduction, priority theme in Romanian society

Posted on by Milutin

In 2018, RHRN – Romanian Harm Reduction Network organized several events within Support. Don’t Punish campaign.

On June 26th, RHRN’s R3 – Revista de Reducere a Riscurilor/ R3 – Harm Reduction Journal was launched within the debate “Harm reduction, priority theme in Romanian society”. Ionut Alexandrescu, president of RHRN, moderated the panel around topics such as peer educators within harm reduction services, legislation for recreational cannabis users, alcohol use and services for people who abuse alcohol and connections between availability and costs of needle exchange programs, methadone treatment and HIV treatment. The event was attended by professionals working in the field and by the manager of Bucharest Ambulance Service.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

For the evening of June 26th, RHRN also scheduled an open air projection of A day in the life: the world of human who use drugs, which was postponed due to weather conditions.

From June 27 to June 29, RHRN – Romanian Harm Reduction Network, ALIAT – Alliance for the Fight against Alcoholism and Addictions, ARAS – Romanian Association against AIDS and PARADA Foundation opened their doors for press and those interested in prevention, harm reduction and rational, human and evidenced-based policies regarding substance use. Open Doors’ motto was (L)egality for health – Drug addiction should be treated at the hospital, not in prison.

Street event in Bucharest

Posted on by Milutin

The Romanian Harm Reduction Network has organized on the 26th of July 2017 a public event in the old town part of Bucharest, as part of the “Support. Don’t Punish” campaign. There were participants from the Anti-AIDS Romanian Association (ARAS), the Alliance to Fight Alcoholism and Addictions (ALIAT), the Parada Foundation and Totem Association, that distributed flyers and stickers with SDP logo, “The Decriminalisation saves lives!” message, with harm reduction and health centered messages for 7 hours. The Forbidden comics and condoms were distributed.

Street event in the old town part of Bucharest

Organisers posted 3 roll-ups with information on drug use, health and decriminalisation needs. The Totem association was present with their drums, inviting people to sit down, join the singing and find out about the campaign. The street children trained at Parada Foundation joined with Totem in providing a joint circus/drums show.

Geplaatst door Dragos Petru Rosca op Dinsdag 27 juni 2017