Webinar Report – Civil Society Forum on HIV/AIDS, Hep & TB

 

The report from the webinar ‘Standards of CARE: HIV, VH, and TB – Good Practices and Ensuring Prevention & Care for People on the move’ is now available.

 

Since its creation in 2005, the EU Civil Society Forum on HIV/AIDS (hereafter CSF) and since 2017,
the EU CSF on HIV/AIDS, TB and viral hepatitis has been instrumental in providing and sharing critical
information and evidence, in undertaking joint actions, and creating synergies between its members.

 

The report contains current standards of care, challenges in implementation, good practice examples of implementation, and cross-border healthcare.

 

Read the full report here.

Data Report Launch Recording

Online launch of the 2022 Civil Society Monitoring of Harm Reduction in Europe.

 

C-EHRN hosted an online launch and discussion of the 2022 Monitoring Report on the 23rd February. During this webinar, key findings and results in Essential Harm Reduction Services, Hepatitis C and Drug Use, and New Drug Trends in Europe were discussed. Implications and opportunities for civil society advocacy, service provision and policy development were also addressed.

 

Speakers;

Katrin Schiffer (CEHRN), Rafaela Rigoni (CEHRN), Iga Jeziorska (CEHRN), Daan van der Gouwe (Trimbos-Instituut), Tuukka Tammi (THL), Perrine Roux (Inserm), Mat Southwell (EuroNPUD) and Alexei Lahov (Humanitarian Action).

 

Watch the full recording here.

 

One Year of War in Ukraine

One year ago, Russia launched Europe’s biggest war since WWII. The toll of human suffering has been staggering – thousands have been killed, and more than 8 million Ukrainians fled abroad. Its social, econonomic and health effects have been felt in nearly everyone’s life.

However, conflicts don’t impact all people equally. War and violence exacerbate structural inequalities and discrimination. This last year, people who use drugs and other marginalised communities in Europe have disproportionately experienced its negative consequences. Equally, harm reduction organisations have been put to the test.

On this day, we remember and mourn all the victims of Russia’s crime of aggression against Ukraine and pay tribute to Ukrainian’s resilience and courage. Equally, we join governments, institutions, organisations and individuals across the world in demanding the immediate, complete and unconditional withdrawal of Russia from the territory of Ukraine.

Until this moment comes, we will continue to #StandWithUkraine and work with our members, partners and friends to ensure that the health, safety and livelihood needs of people who use drugs and other underserved communities are met.

Monitoring Executive Summaries 2022

Correlation – European Harm Reduction Network, together with its Focal Points, presents the Executive Summary of its Data Report 2022 in ten languages to support increasing the impact and reach of our work on the local and national levels. The executive summaries are available in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Russian, German, Italian, Polish, Czech and Greek. Download the executive summaries below.

Monitoring Data Report 2022

2022 was one of the most consequential in recent European history, witness to a series of overlapping crises: the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, fast-growing population displacements, the MPOX outbreak, shrinking civil society spaces and the deepening of socioeconomic inequalities, among others.

Within this context, C-EHRN’s monitoring activities have been embedded with increased urgency. Whilst the effects of these developments have been felt in nearly everyone’s life, people who use drugs, as well as other marginalised and underserved communities, have particularly and disproportionately experienced its negative consequences. Equally, harm reduction organizations in Europe have been put to the test.

In combination with advocacy, the application of civil society-led monitoring tools is crucial to hold governments accountable and to improve the care and support that people who use drugs receive and their environments.

Together with more than one hundred organizations and individuals from thirty-four European countries, C-EHRN set up for itself the task to provide an in-depth look at Harm Reduction in Europe. To this end, the annual 2022 Data Report focused on three main themes: harm reduction essential services, Hepatitis C, and new drug trends. In addition to the data collected, this year C-EHRN conducted in-depth interviews with all its Focal Points, allowing for a richer picture of the developments from last year.

Read the Data Report 2022

Vacancy Communication Officer

 

We are looking for a Communication Officer for 36 hours a week (as of April 2023), who wants to go the extra mile to make social, health and harm reduction services available for marginalised and underserved communities.

 

We are a small and international team working from our office in Amsterdam, which is part of De Regenboog Groep. C-EHRN aims for an inclusive Europe in which marginalised communities, such as People Who Use Drugs, sex workers, migrants or people experiencing homelessness, have access to social and healthcare services without being discriminated against and stigmatised. Please check our website for more information.

As our Communication Officer, you will be responsible for planning and writing engaging and informative content to promote our network activities and results, mobilise supporters, reach institutions, policy-makers and funders or gain the support of new audiences and organizations. You are ambitious, fluent in English and have excellent communication and time management skills.

 

Read the full vacancy here.

BOOST

 

On the 13th & 14th of February, with 45 participants from more than 20 organisations, the first meeting of the BOOST Project took place in the Fondazione Villa Maraini in Rome.

The main aim of the BOOST project is to enhance the implementation of high-quality community-based & community-led communicable disease services as part of a comprehensive, people-centred and integrated harm reduction approach. To ahieve its goal, over the next three years, together with our partners we will focus on four key areas:

INFORM – providing a collection of up-to-date information and data on current practice and quality of community-based and community-led services.
IMPROVE – supporting the organisation of capacity building activities in the field of communicable diseases, indluding the use of digital tools.
SUPPORT – enhancing the scale-up of integrated community-based good practices building up existing models of good practice.
CONNECT & ACT – strenghtening and consolidating existing civil society networks and fostering advocacy interventions for the improved implementation comunity-based and community-led good practices oriented towards the needs of people who use drugs at European, national and local levels.

BOOST Project is founded by the EU4Health programme of the European Union, under the Action Grants to support the implementation of best practices in community-based services for HIV, AIDS, viral hepatitis and sexually transmitted infections. Partners include the Eurasian Harm Reduction Association, EuroNPUD, Free Clinic, Podane Ruce, LILA Milano, Asociacion Bienestar y Desarrolo, IGTP/ICO, ISGlobal, Foundazinone Villa Maraini. Supporting the projects work, the project with count with Scientific Advisory Board and the collaboration of organizations such as DPNSEE, ReGeneration, ARAS Foundation, AIDS Action Europe, among others.

Fostering Community Knowledge

Before its 2022 Annual Data Report launch, C-EHRN is excited to share the first in a series of new publications we have prepared with our Network members and experts.

Communities of people who use drugs have for decades, and before the establishment of mainstream health services, designed and implemented some of the most effective evidence-based harm reduction interventions, such as needle-exchange programs, peer-delivered naloxone and community-based drug checking. However, research collaborations between people who use drugs and academic stakeholders often remain scarce, undervalued, and misinterpreted.

The involvement of harm reduction professionals and community members in research is often limited to serving as interviewees or a gateway to access other, often hard-to-reach participants. Consequently, community members may feel that their meaningful involvement is virtually missing, and research data results in evidence which dismisses the knowledge, experiences, and needs of the communities that are the focus of studies and hence, those who should benefit the most.

The first publication in this new series, Fostering Community Knowledge. Community-based Harm Reduction Research argues the need for inclusion in research of people who use drugs and explores its challenges and potential avenues. With this publication, C-EHRN is also launching a complementary Policy Brief that highlights key areas of consideration and provides recommendations.

Hommage to Béatrice Stambul

“Treat people as they are, without judgment or stigmatisation, recognise the central role and expertise of users, promote pragmatic actions.”

 


Last Wednesday, 8th of February 2023, Beatrice Stambul left us after a long illness in her home city Marseille. All her family and colleagues surrounded her.

Beatrice was a strong activist in harm reduction, a friend to many of us, and an exceptional professional. Psychiatrist and social activist at the same time, her profession was what she called a ‘doctor of the soul’. For many decades, she dedicated her life to making the world a more just and fairer world for the people she felt were left behind: the communities at the margins of society or forgotten in complex global conflicts.

Beatrice was a warm and compassionate person. Her career and professional life took place in Marseille and France, where she passionately advocated for better care services and humane drug policies. Beatrice was one of the leading figures in the French harm reduction and policy movement. In 2013 she was awarded a Legion d’Honeur.

Beatrice was always near and involved in many harm reduction actions: at the beginning of all the HIV/HR services, from the low threshold mobile needle exchange and methadone programs with Medecins du Monde, to the creation of the first people who use drugs organisation, ASUD (Auto-Support des Usagers de Drogues). Also, she was a universal activist at an international level who had been involved in many initiatives. From the very first needle exchange program bus in Russia, in Saint Petersburg in the mid-1990s, to her commitment to developing access to methadone in Myanmar, Marocco and other countries.

Breatiz left too early while actively pushing forward to open the long-awaited drug consumption room in her city. This remains a project for us to complete. We all – colleagues, physicians, patients, researchers, people who use drugs -, ‘a family’ to whom she dedicated all her life lost a hero. Yet, the fight continues.

She taught us never to give up. We will miss her.

Perrine Roux & John-Peter Kools


More information:

“Marseilles Bears a Heavy Stigma of Drug Trafficking and Use” – An Interview with Beatrice Stambul in Drug Reporter.
The death of Béatrice Stambul, psychiatrist and pioneer in harm reduction in News in France.
La Fédération Addiction rend hommage à Béatrice Stambul

Upcoming Webinar from Scottish Drugs Forum

WEBINAR – Learning together: Progressing Decriminalisation in Scotland, Ireland, Norway, Poland and Maine.

There has been substantial progress in the discussion and implementation of decriminalisation of drugs in the past 10 years. The issue is more broadly discussed and is more central to wider discourse around drug use and drug harms. Despite this progress, there remain barriers to ending criminalisation and preventing the consequent harms for people who use drugs and wider society.

SDF will be hosting a webinar to coincide with the publication of a new report, Working To Decriminalise People Who Use Drugs: Learning From Decriminalisation Efforts In 5 International Jurisdictions. This report has been prepared for Ana Liffey Drugs Project by the Scottish Drugs Forum with support and funding of The Open Society Foundation. The report evaluates the recent decriminalisation and advocacy efforts in Scotland, Poland, Norway, Ireland and Maine (USA). These jurisdictions were selected as they had hosted decriminalisation advocacy projects funded by Open Society Foundation (OSF).

This webinar will cover the international policy context of decriminalisation and the findings from the report. Panel members will share the learning from good practice examples from their jurisdiction.  There will be an extended discussion of the challenges and learning from implementing these changes.

Chair – Tony Duffin, Ana Liffey Drug Project, Dublin, Ireland

Introduction – Matt Wilson, Open Society Foundations

Presentations:

Panel discussion Chair – Dave Liddell, Scottish Drugs Forum
Panel: