Newsflash Ukraine: Community Activists Stand for Their Rights at National Harm Reduction Conference

The OSI International Harm Reduction Development Program publishes periodic newsflashes highlighting recent developments in international efforts to reduce harms associated with drug use.

Activists from more than a dozen organizations of people who use drugs were at the center of the 2nd Ukrainian National Harm Reduction Conference, held in Kyiv, March 21-23. At the conference’s opening session, 20 activists took the stage, their mouths bound in white scarves, carrying a banner reading “Why are we not heard?!” Removing their scarves one by one, they read a series of short statements demanding respect for their human rights, access to health and social services, and involvement in policy development and program planning. Community activists were organized and visibly involved in numerous sessions, debates, and workshops, and conference organizers invited seven activists to present the conference resolution and to make the closing statement.

Prior to the conference, 35 participants representing organizations of people who use drugs, PLWHA associations, buprenorphine patients groups, and others organized a community forum with the goal of finding common objectives for advocacy in 2007. This group is now preparing a collaborative advocacy strategy. On March 24, OSI's International Harm Reduction Development Program, the International HIV/AIDS Alliance and the Canadian International Development Agency sponsored an advisory meeting to elicit ideas for the Russian-area edition of the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network’s report Nothing About Us Without Us: Greater, Meaningful Involvement of People Who Use Illegal Drugs. The Russian edition will include content prepared by community activists in the former Soviet countries, and will be published by the Legal Network in the fall of 2007.

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For more information, please contact Olena Kucheruk at kucheruk@irf.kiev.ua or Matt Curtis at mcurtis@sorosny.org.

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