The International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking represents a good opportunity for everyone to recognize and respect the rights of young people who use drugs, especially the rights of young women who use drugs affected by HIV. On this day, HIV Young Leaders Fund is proud to announce ‘Bring on the Change.’
Bring On The Change (BOTC) is a regional advocacy platform to amplify the voices of young women affected by drug use and HIV in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. It aims to bring together community groups, advocates, activists, networks and other stakeholders together to achieve a more inclusive and comprehensive HIV response that takes into account the voices of young women who use drugs in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
The platform is a joint-initiative by 3 community-based youth-led organizations, Ganesha, Rovno and Shans Plus, that work with young women affected by drug use and HIV in Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine and Russia respectively, and is supported by HIV Young Leaders Fund and its allies.
The need for an advocacy platform
In Eastern Europe and Central Asia, HIV disproportionately affects young women who use drugs. The current HIV response does not effectively address the age and gender related vulnerabilities of this group and services, where available, are inaccessible, unaffordable, stigmatizing, neither youth-friendly nor gender sensitive.
In addition to the rising rate of new infections among young women who use drugs, the region is also seeing a spark of new leadership among this group as community-led initiatives are reaching out to and mobilizing young women to advocate for their right to health, their right to a life of dignity free from violence. However, harsh drug policies and laws, the criminalisation of drug users and severe social stigma often make it unsafe, particularly for young women, to identify oneself as drug user or as HIV positive, let alone do human-rights advocacy.
There is therefore an urgent need for a safe space where these young community-based advocates can connect with each other, with their allies and with other stakeholders at national, regional and international level and strengthen their advocacy efforts at both community as well as country level.
No longer are we waiting on the world to fight for us. We are leading, from stage centre. Join us and bring on the change!
Through this platform we aim to:
- Create a safe space where the lived realities of young women in EECA who affected by drug use and HIV can be shared and documented;
- Support issue-based advocacy campaigns at community level and country level;
- Create a resource base of knowledge products, available evidence, and other advocacy tools that can be used to inform, develop and implement community and country level campaigns;
- Develop a network of advocates and allies that are available to community groups for support with technical and skill based capacity building on advocacy.
You can find the ’Bring on The Change’ Call to Action here in English and here in Russian. For more information on the platform and how you can get involved, please email:info@hivyoungleadersfund.org
________________________________________________________________
Ganesha based in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan is the first youth organization of women who use drugs in Kyrgyzstan. It provides access to harm reduction services in Bishkek, and hosts education seminars for its members on pregnancy, HIV treatment and other topics. Ganesha mobilizes young women who use drugs and are affected by HIV to speak up for their rights.
Rovno Regional Initiative Group of the Association of Women Affected by HIV in Ukraine works to defend the human rights of women who use drugs and are affected by HIV through documenting human rights abuses and providing them legal support among other key services.
Shans Plus based in Ekaterinburg, Russia Federation supports young women who use drugs and are living with HIV with low-threshold access to HIV and other health services, through helping women obtain registration papers, accompanying women to medical appointments to ensure fair treatment and providing legal consultations when womens’ rights are violated.
HIV Young Leaders Fund (HYLF) is a project of the Tides Center. HYLF’s mission is to enable new leadership in the HIV response among young people most affected by HIV. Our primary role is as a community-driven funding mechanism that provides small grants to youth-led HIV initiatives, and needs-based technical assistance relevant to the grant. In 2012, with support from Open Society Foundations, HYLF started a multi-year program in Eastern Europe and Central Asia that provides small grants to initiatives led by young women who use drugs. The grants program aims to catalyse leadership among this group and strengthen their institutional capacity to advocate for their health and rights.
HYLF would like to thank Open Society Foundations and Youth RISE for supporting the development of Bring On The Change.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
