Tag: EU Project

Reducing the problems of the dependency

Posted on by Milutin

The annual Press Conference “Activities on the field of reducing the problems of the dependency” was held on 20 December 2018 in the EU info Centre in Belgrade. Speakers at the Conference were Nebojša Đurasović, President of the Association Prevent, Milan Pekić, Director of the Office for Combating Drugs of the Government of the Republic of Serbia and Milutin Milošević, Executive Director of the Drug Policy Network South East Europe. Representatives of the institutions and organisations with whom Prevent and DPNSEE cooperate participated in the Conference.

Nebojša Đurasović presented activities which Association Prevent conducted in scope of the project “At Risk Youth Social Empowerment” and other projects realised in 2018. For a good work, Prevent deserved the award “Responsible attitude and work with vulnerable young people” offered by the city of Novi Sad. Đurasović also spoke about extending the programme of needle exchange to Belgrade and draw attention to the issues of drugs in Serbia including raising number of overdose deaths in young population.

Milan Pekić presented the co-operation between the Office for Combating Drugs and civil society organisations in Serbia as an example of good practice, especially in the process of designing the new Action Plan for implementation of the Strategy for drug prevention.

Milutin Milošević presented a situation in the region of South East Europe, activities in 2018 and plans of the Drug Policy Network South East Europe for the future. His comments on new psychoactive substances and change of culture of drug use raised a special attention.

Representatives of institutions and organisations that co-operate with Prevent and Drug Policy Network SEE were attended the Conference and took discussion on several topics, especially about discrimination.

The open discussion that followed was mainly focused on the issue of discrimination of drug users.

Two news publications were presented at the Conference: Prevent published the one on “Empowering against the discrimination of youth at risk“, while DPNSEE prepared the Serbian version of their Glossary of terms used in drug policy with the support of the Office for combating drugs.

Videos from the Conference are available in following this link >>>

Project partners meeting

Posted on by Milutin

The meeting of the partners in the EU Funded project “Strengthening NGO capacity and promoting public health and human rights oriented drug policy in South Eastern Europe” was held in Belgrade, Serbia, on Monday, 10 December 2018. This was the last meeting of the project which lasted for 4 years, supported by the European Commission DG Near.

The partners approved the minutes from the recent meeting, held on 12 September by Skype, and partners informed about the recent activities.

Margina has finished with the activities of the programme. Prevent has yet to implement a press conference, most probably in Belgrade by the end of the year. Diogenis has finished with the activities of the programme, except from the last newsletter. Olga Pateraki informed the partners of the reallocation regarding the budget of Diogenis, in order to translate in Greek and print the booklet “Drug Policy reform, The UNGASS 2016 a catalyst for change”.

DPNSEE Executive Director Milutin Milosevic informed the partners about the activities that has been implemented during this period: the country visits in Romania and in Greece, the General Assembly that took place in Belgrade, the capacity building that was held during September, the Resource Centre and the Glossary. The Glossary has been printed and there is in English, Spanish and Serbo-Croatian, with the intention to be translated also in other languages. The discrimination paper has been started but not reached yet the desired recorded cases.

The partners have agreed to send all their final financial reports by the 10th of January to Diogenis in order to prepare the final financial report, who is collecting and preparing the reports. The financial report will be also in a format of detailed breakdown that the EC asks along with the final report. The reports of the activities will be also sent to Diogenis in order to compile them for the final report in January.

Sustainability of the project on the table

Posted on by Milutin

The second partners meeting of the project “Strengthening NGO capacity and promoting public health and human rights oriented drug policy in South Eastern Europe” in 2018 was held on 7 of June in Thessaloniki. Greece.

The discussion of the meeting was oriented around the topics that included reporting from the partner organisation about the implementation of the Action plan 2018 and partners activities. This was of special importance since this is the last year of the project implementation.

The partners used the opportunity to discuss the situation of drug policy and harm reduction in their respective countries, as well as development over the course of last 4 years when the project was implemented. The project partners also internally evaluated the project activities so far and discussed about the way forward regarding the content and the funding of the future actions to be undertaken.

Partners Coordination Meeting

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Representatives of all 6 partners in the EU funded project “Strengthening NGO capacity and promoting public health and human rights oriented drug policy in South Eastern Europe” met in Thessaloniki, Greece, on 8 June 2017.

Partners adopted the Minutes of the Project Partners Skype meeting  held on Friday 10 February 2017 with some additions proposed by DPNSEE. Diogenis informed about successful audit for 2016 and announced  the EC initiated Audit of the Financial report 2015.

Partner organisations presented their short reports about the implementation of the Action plan 2017. Reports from visits to Croatia (written) and Bulgaria (oral, the visit happened just before the meeting) were received, with the comment that more information are needed about the work of civil society organisations. The visit to Slovenia is planned for September.

Agreements were made for preparations of the interim report and action plan 2018 (if possible, they will be done on partners meeting at the end of August/beginning of September). Partners are invited to send their proposals by 20 July.