ECOM is looking for consultants

Eurasian Coalition on Male Health (ECOM) is one of the pre-qualified providers of the Global Fund’s CRG program and provides technical assistance to communities and key populations of Albania for conducting budget advocacy, and cost–effectiveness and efficiency analyses of HIV and STI services for gay men, men who have sex with men and trans* people in Albania. More details are available following this link>>>.

Additionally, ECOM is looking for the consultant to conduct mapping of HIV and STI services for MSM and trans* people and organizing local meetings with stakeholders in the Republic of Albania>>>.

Application deadline: November 1, 2020, 23:59 (GMT +3).

All these activities are to be implemented as a part of the technical assistance within the Global Fund’s CRG TA Program.

Training Material on addressing gay men and other MSM

The Training Programme for Community Health Workers (CHW) engaged in work with men who have sex with men (MSM) in Europe was developed in the frame of the EU-funded ESTICOM project. Its aim is to help increasing the quality of the services CHW provide.

The training programme addresses a wide range of topics CHW are working with and covers all main areas CHW address in their work. It consists of Face-to-Face training material for interactive workshops as well as E-Learning modules that are more knowledge based.

The Face-to-Face material is published in: English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Polish, Greek, Romanian, Portuguese and Russian.

The material is also suitable to be used for training CHW that work with other target groups than MSM.

To download the training material, follow this link>>>

To use the training material on-line, visit this website>>>

Programmatic Mapping to Estimate Size, Distribution, and Dynamics of Key Populations in Kosovo

The burden of an HIV epidemic in Kosovo* lies among the key populations (KPs) of female sex workers (FSWs), men who have sex with men (MSM), and people who inject drugs (PWIDs). The aim of this study was to estimate the size and distribution of these populations to create evidence for developing action plans for HIV prevention.

Results of this Study: Study in Kosovo

Of the estimated 6814 men who have sex with men (range: 6445 to 7117), nearly 4940 operate through the internet owing to the large stigma and discrimination against same-sex relationships. Geo-based men who have sex with men (who operate through physical spots) congregate at a few spots with large spot sizes (13.3 men who have sex with men /spot). Three-fourths of the men who have sex with men are distributed in 5 major municipalities. Fridays and Saturdays are the peak days of operation; however, the number only increases by 5%. A significant number are involved in sex work, that is, provide sex to other men for money. People who inject drugs are largely geo-based; 4973 (range: 3932 to 6015) people who inject drugs of the total number of 5819 (range: 4777 to 6860) visit geographical spots, with an average spot size of 7.1. In smaller municipalities, they mostly inject in residential locations. The numbers stay stable during the entire week, and there are no peak days. Of the 5037 (range: 4213 to 5860) female sex workers, 20% use cell phones, whereas 10% use websites to connect with clients. The number increases by 25% on weekends, especially in larger municipalities where sex work is mostly concentrated. Other than a few street-based spots, most spots are establishments run by pimps, which is reflective of the highly institutionalized, structured, and organized female sex workers network.

This study provides valuable information about the population size estimates as well as dynamics of each KP, which is the key to developing effective HIV prevention strategies. The information should be utilized to develop microplans and effectively provide HIV prevention services to various KPs.

To read more about this study follow this link >>>>