Tag: HIV

Take the first step for your protection

Posted on by Milutin

More than 50% of people living with HIV worldwide are women. In Europe 1 in 3 HIV diagnoses concerns women. In Greece, 66,5% of women that have been diagnosed with HIV, until today, acquired the virus through heterosexual sexual intercourse.

The above data combined with the fact that there is lack of female-oriented awareness campaigns in Greece, motivated the Centre for Life (Kentro Zois) to design a powerful awareness campaign for the female population, focusing on heterosexual intercourse, in order to convey the message that HIV concerns women as well and that women can take the initiative for a healthy sex life.

Centre for Life’s campaign entitled “Take the first step for your protection” has the valuable support of the Melina Merkouri Foundation and constitutes the first coordinated awareness effort for women concerning HIV and/or AIDS in Greece. Leading roles of the campaign are played by Lena Drosaki, Lena Papaligoura, Ioanna Pappa and Gioulika Skafida, actresses that have been awarded with the Melina Merkouri Theatre Award for their performances.

Kentro Zois would like to thank the Dramatic Arts of the Piraeus Society and the talented actors Augoustinos Koumoulos, Dinos Gelameris, Angelos Dallas , Nikos Mavrakis & Elias Adam for their particpation, Larry Gus for letting us use the song “Aggelos Kiriou”, as well as Pitch for the warm hospitality.

The Centre of Life, since its foundation, implements support and empowerment services for seropositive women, as well as information and prevention actions for the female population. Women are a population particularly vulnerable to HIV, both due to biological factors and psychosocial factors.  Given all the above, the Centre for Life considers of utmost importance the message of information and proper prevention to reach all women, thus inviting the public to support this effort for an issue that concerns us all.

More about the campaign you can find HERE>>>

Strong “Support. Don’t Punish” campaign in Macedonia

Posted on by Milutin

In the period from June 22 to July 07, as part of the “Support Don’t Punish” campaign, Healthy Options Project Skopje – HOPS has implemented activities in Macedonia.

Along with the Sustainability Platform for HIV Awareness Programs, on 22 June 2017, HOPS held a press conference for the need of providing financial resources and continuation of HIV prevention and harm reduction programs in the Republic of Macedonia. Dr. Arben Tarawari, new Minister of Health, also attended to the press conference and stated that the Ministry will support the programs.

The press conference with Dr. Arben Tarawari, Minister of Health

On June 16th 2017, a public call for the best journalistic article was published on the topic: „Sustainability and the need of harm reduction programs in the Republic of Macedonia”. Up to the deadline, 6 articles of journalism (5 texts and 1 video) were reported to the call. The articles evaluation committee has selected the two best articles, followed by a 300$ prize for the first place, and 200$ for second place. The winners are publicly announced on the HOPS website.

Logo of the campaign

With „Save Lives“ logo, an online petition was published to support harm reduction and HIV prevention programs in Republic of Macedonia. So far, 659 persons have signed the on-line petition. Additionally, on June 27th 2017, a stand for collecting signatures for support a petition was set on the city square in Skopje. In total, 980 signatures are collected. The petition will be submitted to the Ministry of Health and the Government of the Republic of Macedonia.

Greek organisations united around the “Support. Don’t Punish” campaign

Posted on by Milutin

For one more year, the global campaign “Support.Don’t Punish” has been successfully implemented in Greece. In 2017, 6 different civil society organizations – that constitute the Greek NGO Platform for Psychoactive Substances, an unofficial initiative for joint action among organizations working in the area of drug policy and psychoactive substances – joined forces and cooperated in order to effectively spread the message of the campaign, sensitize the public, raise awareness regarding the harms being caused by the criminalization of people who use drugs and promote the need for human rights and public health oriented drug policy and drug law reform.

The organizations that supported the implementation of the campaign were:

  • “CENTRE FOR LIFE” for the support of people living with HIV/AIDS [DPNSEE member]
  • “DIOGENIS”- Drug Policy Dialogue [IDPC partner member & DPNSEE partner member]
  • “PeNUPS”- Peer Network of Users of Psychoactive Substances
  • “POSITIVE VOICE”- Association of People living with HIV/AIDS [DPNSEE member]
  • “PROMETHEUS” – Hellenic Liver Patient Association [DPNSEE member]
  • “PRAKSIS” [IDPC network member]

For the achievement of the aforementioned goals, two main activities were implemented:

  1. A press interview (June 27th, 12.00-14.00h, at Romantso, 3-5 Anaksagora Street, Omonia, Athens)
  2. A street event (June 27th, 19.00h at SIN Athina, Athens)

Furthermore, before the 27th of June, representatives of these organizations took the initiative to spread the message of the campaign during several official events, that were organized by state authorities by asking officials, journalists, scientists, decision-makers and other high-ranking representatives of governmental organizations to take a photograph with the logo of “Support.Don’t Punish” (e.g. Mrs. Teta Papoutsopoulou-Diamantopoulou, the National Drug Coordinator; Mr. Evaggelos Kavetzopoulos, President of the Hellenic Organization against Drugs- OKANA; Mr. Nikolaos Manios, Chairman of the Parliament’s Committee on Social Affairs; Μr. Nikolaos Paraskevopoulos, MP and former Minister of Justice).

The press interview given by representatives of PeNUPS

The press interview was given by representatives of PeNUPS (Peer Network of Users of Psychoactive Substances), Mr. Christos Anastasiou and Mr. John Kissas, promoting in that way peer involvement which is one of the basic principles of Harm Reduction.

The remaining organizations actively supported the needs for the preparation and successful implementation of this activity. It was the first time that people coming from the community of PWUD had the floor in a press interview, which attracted 30 participants and was coordinated by the journalist Mrs. Ioanna Sotirchou.

During the afternoon of the 27th of June, a street event also took place in the center of Athens. The goals of this activity were to make the campaign more visible, celebrate the message of “Support.Don’tPunish”, provide informational material and offer some services both to the general population and vulnerable groups (including PWUD) in the area.

 

The street event in the center of Athens

Volunteers from the coordinating organizations actively contributed in the implementation. T-shirts, bags, stickers with the logo of “Support. Don’t Punish” and flyers with the basic principles of Harm Reduction were distributed. In addition, NGO Praksis offered free, anonymous and voluntary rapid testing for HIV, HBV and HCV with its mobile unit. Moreover, of outmost importance was the contribution of the initiative “STEPS” that helped in the preparation of food and beverages and offered music. This event gathered and united around a hundred people.

For the needs of campaign’s promotion a facebook page was created under the title: Support.Don’t Punish -Greece- where you can have access to more detailed information, videos and photographs. Facebook advert was used attract more people to the page, resulted in 300 likes within a week.

2 facebook events were also created for the promotion of the two activities:

https://www.facebook.com/events/203865003471040

https://www.facebook.com/events/321069778316468

Group photo from the street event

A petition for supporting Harm Reduction Programs and HIV prevention in Republic of Macedonia

Posted on by Milutin

Further survival of harm reduction programs and HIV prevention in the Republic of Macedonia is uncertain. The current financial support from the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria ends in June 2017. This will result with leaving over 10,000 people who use drugs as well as their family members without proper social and health care.

Thanks to harm reduction programs, only two new HIV cases have been recorded in Macedonia in the last ten years as a result of drugs injecting and less than 5% of 315 registered cases of HIV were people who inject drugs. These figures are far smaller than in the neighbouring countries. Macedonia can boast with the lowest HIV rate in Southeast Europe, but if these programs are not implemented, there is a risk of HIV epidemics as a result of interaction with the epidemics in neighbouring countries and the possibility of increasing risk behaviours.

There are 17 harm reduction programs in Macedonia (4 in Skopje and 13 in different other cities). These programs are efficient and financially worthwhile. According to the research analyses, the cost for one client in harm reduction programs is approximately 155 € per year. In contrast, the cost only for medicines for a patient with hepatitis C is up to 13.194 €, and the untimely and inappropriate treatment of hepatitis C causes cirrhosis and liver cancer, whose treatment costs more than 30.000 € per patient. Additionally, the costs of treating HIV and hepatitis C financially exhaust the families of people in need of treatment, thereby further multiplying undesirable costs and disrupting overall social well-being.

Therefore, a petition was initiated to request the Ministry of Health and the Government of the Republic of Macedonia to:

  • Adopt an urgent solution for using funds from the HIV program and the remaining funds from the Global Fund for key programs across the country, which will ensure continued assistance to citizens and the prevention of HIV.
  • Establish cooperation between the Ministry of Health and the civil society and other stakeholders for adoption of appropriate laws or by-laws and measures that will guarantee transparency, adequate expertise and long-term sustainability and development of HIV prevention programs.

Sign up the petition here!

Healthy Options Project Skopje produced advocacy movie in cooperation with Drugreporter to support the campaign and save underfunded harm reduction programmes which are a huge success in the region. Watch the video produced and learn more!

Highlighting problems, proposals for solutions and the need for protecting the rights of HIV positive detainees, at the conference of the Centre of Life

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The Centre of Life organized a conference titled “Detention centres and HIV: Prevention, Therapy, Support” aiming to inform about the defence of the human rights of the HIV positive detainees.

The Secretary General of Crime Policy of the Greek Ministry of Justice, Mr. Eftichis Fitrakis, opened the conference with a salute and highlighted that “this conference is part of an overall problem that concerns all the aspects of human rights and is related to health in combination with detention conditions”.

Main part of the conference was the presentation of the research of the Centre of Life “HIV positive detainees and access to Social Rights”, the results of which are based on the interference of the Organization from March 2016 until December 2016, with the Detainee Hospital of Korydallos, the women’s department of the Korydallos prison, the detention facilities of directorate of Attiki and Thessaloniki Aliens and the Diavata prison.

According to the research of the Centre of Life, it is suggested:

  • Accession of the Detainee Hospital of Korydallos to the National Healthcare System, ensuring a separate fund from the budget for the antiretroviral treatment, as well as the employment of specialized and sufficient health professionals.
  • Introduction of therapeutic rehabilitation and substitution programs.
  • Improvement of the infrastructure, conformation of the yards and creation of recreation and sports areas.
  • Compliance with a dietary plan that will correspond to the special dietary needs of the HIV positive detainees, according to their religious beliefs as well.
  • The issuing of the Ministerial Decision for the details concerning the regular update of the personnel of the detention centres, as well as the information of the detainees on issues of counselling hygiene and receiving preventive measures for dealing with HIV or other infectious diseases.
  • Systematic evaluation, from competent bodies, of the applied measures and practices as well as collaboration of the bodies, state and non-state, at a local, national and international level.

During the conference, the competent bodies agreed on the need of promoting a common strategy, in order for detainees to experience dignifying detention conditions and uninterrupted access to health care services. According to the participants, this will improve the public health care issues, at a broader scale, and in the same time it will enhance the level of the provided medical care and the detention conditions in prison.

You can find here the study conducted by Centre for Life.

A challenge to connect and coordinate efforts in fighting HIV/AIDS

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skoplje-1

The FYRO Macedonia Country Coordinating Mechanism hosted the South East Europe High Level HIV
Regional Meeting on 1 and 2 December 2016 in Skopje in partnership with local NGOs H.E.R.A. and
Stronger Together and supported by AIDS Healthcare Foundation.

The objective of the meeting was to establish a regional platform in South East Europe from countries that
are receiving and transiting from Global Fund to advocate for HIV sustainability beyond Global Fund
projects both at national and regional level. Countries in the South East Europe expected to be part of the
regional platform are: Macedonia, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Bulgaria
and Romania. Representatives of all these countries participated except Albania.

Besides country representatives, participants at the meeting included Vice-Chair and two Board members
and Focal Points of the Global Fund, representatives of the Open Society Foundations from New York and
local, several international organisations operating in the country (UNFPS, USAID, WHO, UNICEF), HIV and tuberculosis unit in the national Ministry of Health and local NGOs.

This was the first regional meeting of the CCM representatives. It was initiated to coordinate actions in a
very difficult situation when South East Europe is the only region which haven’t EECA region didn’t meet the Millennium Development Goal 6 related to HIV/AIDS. Question hard to answer is: Is it possible to end the HIV epidemic in SEE countries with current domestic and international investments? That is why the
Government investments of in HIV response and funding CSOs programs for key populations are important but not enough.

The Global Fund has 272 million USD for multi-country actions and 50 million USD for fighting HIV in
countries in transition. The decision on funding the projects in the next three years will be announced on 15 December!

The Open Society Foundations created their Safety Net mechanism for safeguarding services for key
population in countries where Global Fund is not providing funds any more. From actions eligible for these
funds, advocacy and accreditation are especially interesting for DPNSEE.

The meeting once again emphasized involvement of community and civil society organization in the HIV
regional dialogue. Unfortunately, there were no high level governmental representatives although it was
the idea of the organisers.

Working part of the meeting was dedicated to formulating the SEE Regional Coordinating Mechanism
Governance Manuel: Mission, common goals, objectives and outcomes, members, regional meetings,
activities as part of the 2017 working plan. It is important to underline that the RCM does not seek to
duplicate or over-ride the national authority of any CCMs or similar national bodies. Rather, through good
coordination among different regional stakeholders, it can and will amplify the work of national CCMs.

The participants agreed to delegate to Macedonian CCM responsibility to confirm all the members of RCM,
and complete the full draft of the Governance Manual by 31 January 2017. Permanent RCM Secretariat
office will be established by the RCM on the basis of an open, transparent and competitive process.

Besides the Executive Director, DPNSEE had several member organisations in the national delegations:
Viktorija from Bosnia Herzegovina, HOPS from FYRO Macedonia, Cazas and Juventas from Montenegro and ARAS from Romania. We had a good exchange and cooperated well when discussing the proposals.

What works in budget advocacy?

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The Eurasian Harm Reduction Network (EHRN) organised an interesting workshop on “What works: Budget advocacy for national investments in harm reduction” from 23 – 25 October 2016, in Budapest, Hungary.
The workshop was organized within the EC funded project “Harm reduction works! Improving funding for
harm reduction and HIV prevention in the EU” with co-funding from the Open Society Foundations.

The goal of the workshop was to provide a learning and planning space for national advocacy teams with
representatives of harm reduction NGOs from Lithuania, Hungary, Romania, Bosnia, Macedonia,
Montenegro and Serbia for greater domestic investments in harm reduction in their countries.

Objectives of the workshop were:
●To build knowledge on how to influence budgets at national and municipal levels;
●To re-assess the funding situation and the vision of the future budget needs and sources;
●To advance skills on planning advocacy tactics, adapting evidence-based arguments and work with
politicians and media;
●To explore possibilities for advocacy cooperation with other health, human rights and transparency
movements in the country and other related processes;
●To develop advocacy plans with milestones for 2 years and detailed planning for the next 8 months;
●To assess the needs for continuous capacity building and support from political and technical
partners and communication after the meeting.

Harm reduction services and HIV-related community systems strengthening is underfunded from national
budgets in a number of EU member states in Central Europe and their South-East European neighbours that are EU candidate or potential candidate countries. Besides, as a rule, EU member states are not eligible for donor support or development assistance other than provided by the EU itself. South Eastern Europe is being rapidly left by its main remaining donor of harm reduction and other HIV interventions among key populations, the Global Fund, without adequate commitment from local authorities.

In order to strategically influence national and local authorities to secure funding for unmet needs of key
populations, NGOs need to conduct so called budget advocacy, so as to better understand how to influence
budget processes and policies, and increase accountability mechanisms.

9 Drug Policy Network South East Europe member organisations from member 5 countries participated in
the workshop, along with the Executive director of the Network. It was an excellent opportunity to get to
know more about on-going projects and plans for the future, present the Network and get contacts for
possible partnerships.