Tag: EU Delegation

Community Based Services for People Living with HIV and AIDS

Posted on by Milutin

The National Conference on Innovative Community Based Services for People Living with HIV and AIDS, held in Belgrade, Serbia on 1 December 2017, was also the final activity of two-year project “Towards standardization of community based social service provision for people living with HIV in Serbia”, implemented by the Union of Organizations of Serbia dealing with the protection of people living with HIV and AIDS (USOP) with partners: Žena plus, AID +, Centre AS, Sunce, Crvena linija, Stav + and Nova + (PLHIV associations from Belgrade, Novi Sad, Niš, Subotica and Pančevo). The project is part of the “European Union Support to an Inclusive Society” program, funded and implemented by the Delegation of the European Union to the Republic of Serbia in cooperation with the Ministry of Labor, Employment, Veterans’ Affairs and Social Affairs through the IPA Program (The Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance).

The conference addressed the activities of both civil and government sectors in response to the HIV epidemic, especially when it comes to social care, health care and legal assistance to people living with HIV and AIDS (PLHIV), but also prevention and the possibility of stopping the spread of infection, as well as reducing stigma and discrimination against this population.

The services are the basic means of achieving the goals of social protection. The Law on Social Protection recognizes five groups of services for which the standards were developed by the project or are in phase of development. In addition to these, other community-based innovative services have been developed in the community to respond to a wide range of people’s needs. One of the innovative services is peer support service for people living with HIV and AIDS offered by activists living with HIV and AIDS.

Support. Don’t Punish Kick-off event

Posted on by Milutin

The Drug Policy Network South East Europe announced activities in scope of the “Support. Don’t Punish” campaign at the Kick-off event held on 20 June in the EU Info Centre in Belgrade, Serbia. This global campaign that will in 2017 be held in 178 cities in 85 countries promotes drug policies based on human rights and public health approaches. The campaign is a voice against ruinous War Against Drugs which has in 46 years brought numerous negative consequences including overdose deaths, HIV and hepatitis C infections among people who use drugs, prison over-crowding, extra-judicial killings, the use of the death penalty, and an exacerbation of stigma, marginalisation, violence and corruption.

The Network coordinates activities of the campaign in South East Europe around the Global Day of Actions 26 June – which is also the United Nations’ International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking.

Promotion of the “Support. Don’t Punish” campaign ion SEE

During the event, the Network representatives emphasized numerous problems organisations that provide services are facing and growing trends in the region and Serbia specifically. Dr Maja Vučković Krčmar, representing the Delegation of the European Union to the Republic of Serbia presented the European Drug Report 2017, prepared by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addictions, underlining dilemmas around cannabis decriminalisation, emerging of new psychoactive substances and increased availability of cocaine. Director of the Office for Combating Drugs of the Government of Republic of Serbia Milan Pekić reminded that Serbia is at the main Balkan drug route and called for coordinated work of all governmental structures and civil society organisations in preparing and implementing holistic answer to the problem.

The Drug Policy Network South East Europe presented the Glossary of terms used in drug policy and relevant related matters and the Resource Centre which will be of service to all those who need information and other kinds of support.

For more information about the activities in South East Europe, please visit http://www.dpnsee.org/support-dont-punish-see-country-activities/. Follow the development at Facebook or Twitter.

For information about the campaign worldwide, please visit http://supportdontpunish.org/2017-global-day-of-action/ or follow the Facebook event or Twitter account.

Governmental, civil society , international organisations and media in public