Public Health Program e-Newsletter Fall 2008

This issue of the Public Health Program (PHP) e-Newsletter highlights our work during the months of July, August, and September, with upcoming events in October and November. We encourage information sharing to explore potential collaboration and receive feedback. Suggestions and input are welcome. Contact Paul Silva at psilva@sorosny.org. Please visit the PHP website at www.soros.org/health for more information on our work.

Topics

1. International AIDS Conference
2. Advocacy on Our Issues
3. Capacity Building
4. Joint Initiatives
5. Other News and Announcements
6. Upcoming Events

International AIDS Conference

PHP at AIDS 2008
The Public Health Program was highly active at the XVII International AIDS Conference in Mexico City in August. Working with its partner organizations and grantees, PHP was successful in highlighting, as never before, the critical need for human rights to be at the center of the global AIDS response.

For the first time ever, a Human Rights Networking Zone and a global rally on human rights and HIV/AIDS were convened during the International AIDS Conference, thanks to the efforts of OSI and a coalition of human rights and AIDS organizations. Thousands of activists and people affected by HIV and AIDS turned out for the event to show their support for marginalized populations that are highly impacted by the AIDS epidemic. During the rally, a copy of the declaration Human Rights and HIV/AIDS: Now More Than Ever, endorsed by over 600 organizations worldwide, was presented to high-level officials including UNAIDS Executive Director Peter Piot and Michel Kazatchkine, Executive Director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

PHP issues were well represented during the plenary events, which drew tens of thousands of conference delegates. PHP Director Françoise Girard discussed the importance of human rights and harm reduction in her introduction of plenary speaker Dr. Adeeba Kamarulzaman, a member of the International Harm Reduction Development Program (IHRD) Advisory Group. Dr. Kamarulzaman called for an end to policies that impede evidence-based approaches to preventing the spread of HIV among people who inject drugs, such as clean needle exchange and methadone and buprenorphine treatment. At the closing plenary, South African Supreme Court Justice Edwin Cameron spoke passionately against misguided policies that criminalize HIV transmission or exposure.

Justice Cameron also participated in a press conference sponsored by the Law and Health Initiative (LAHI) to address harmful trends in HIV laws, including those that deny people access to the most effective HIV prevention measures, restrict HIV education for young people, and impose mandatory HIV tests that violate international human rights standards while doing nothing to protect people from HIV. In addition to Justice Cameron, the press conference featured LAHI Director Jonathan Cohen, Anne Gathumbi of the Open Society Initiative for East Africa, Susan Timberlake of UNAIDS, and Richard Pearshouse of the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network. 

In advance of the AIDS Conference, the Public Health Program brought together activists, advocates, and health experts from Africa, North and South America, Southeast Asia, and Eastern Europe for a symposium on “woman-friendly” responses to HIV. “Strategies for Change: Breaking Barriers to HIV Prevention, Treatment and Care for Women” examined innovative empowerment, legal, economic, and health services strategies for addressing the disproportionate impact of the AIDS pandemic on women and girls, with a particular focus on the needs of women who are often marginalized by society, including sex workers, drug users, and women living with HIV. The programs addressed at the symposium are featured in a new report available online at: www.soros.org/initiatives/health/focus/phw/articles_publications/publications/breakingbarriers_20080802

A two-day satellite supported by the Sexual Health and Rights Project (SHARP) and organized by the Global Forum on MSM and HIV brought attention to the funding and service gaps for men who have sex with men (MSM) living with and at risk for HIV. Another pre-conference symposium organized by the Mexican sex worker rights organization Aproase, in partnership with the international Network of Sex Work Projects (NSWP), brought together sex workers from around the world to discuss advocacy strategies, including increased visibility of sex work issues at IAC.

IHRD sponsored a satellite session on best practices for providing antiretroviral medicines to injecting drug users, which included speakers from France, Mauritius, Ukraine, Russia, and Brazil. IHRD Director Daniel Wolfe chaired the satellite, as well as a session on “Global and Local Policy Initiatives on Injecting Drug Use” and presented at two sessions focused on detention and imprisonment of drug users.

In order to promote improved care and treatment for drug users co-infected with TB and HIV, Wolfe spoke, along with the heads of the World Health Organization’s Stop TB Department and the Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, at a press conference to launch the new WHO/UNAIDS/UNODC Policy Guidelines for Collaborative TB and HIV Services for Injecting and Other Drug Users. A summary of that press conference can be found at www.aidsmap.com/en/news/530E1D95-4DF8-48E9-BA96-22DACA98493E.asp.  

The International Palliative Care Initiative (IPCI) helped call attention to the need for palliative care to be an integral part of treatment and care for people with HIV/AIDS. IPCI participated in a symposium, Palliative Care and AIDS: The Moral Imperative, that highlighted how palliative care organizations have strengthened health systems and improved the quality of life of individuals living with and affected by HIV. Also discussed were innovative solutions to overcoming common barriers hindering the integration of palliative care into health systems and the delivery of pain control and symptom management. IPCI was also involved in the preparation and distribution of a delegates’ guide for palliative care activities, and supported a pediatric palliative care skills-building workshop, several palliative care posters, and a Global Village site for the Worldwide Palliative Care Alliance.

The use of new media was front and center at AIDS 2008, and the Public Health Program was in the thick of it. The Health Media Initiative supported WITNESS to facilitate a series of trainings for human rights advocates on conducting video advocacy. Participants were provided with digital recording equipment to interview other activists and capture community voices during the AIDS conference. Several of these video testimonies were presented during the human rights rally and are online at the WITNESS Hub. OSI also enlisted Global Voices blogger Juliana Rincón Parra to post a series of daily dispatches on conference events that address the human rights and health needs of marginalized persons. The dispatches are available at: www.soros.org/initiatives/health/focus/hiv.

The Public Health Program is currently preparing efforts to build on this human rights momentum for the next International AIDS Conference to be held in Vienna in 2010.

Advocacy on Our Issues

Groups Launch Advocacy Campaign on Forced Sterilization of Roma Women
As part of the Women’s World Congress held in Madrid in July, OSI's Roma Health Project supported a panel discussion on the issue of coerced sterilization of Romani women in Central and Eastern Europe. The panel was organized by OSI grantee the European Roma Rights Center (ERRC), together with the Group of Women Harmed by Sterilization and Peacework Development Fund, and marked the beginning of an advocacy campaign to achieve justice for Romani victims of coerced sterilization. The groups distributed a publication on the practice of coerced sterilization to raise awareness within the international women’s movement of the extreme violence and harm to personal integrity experienced by victims, and to garner support for their continuing struggle for justice. The three organizations will meet government officials in Hungary and the Czech Republic to advocate for protections against coerced sterilization and demand compensation for victims. Read more: www.soros.org/initiatives/health/focus/roma/events/romawomen_20080703.

Macedonia Opens “Iron Gate” to End Social Exclusion of Hundreds of Citizens
On September 18, the government of Macedonia represented by the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy, signed a three-year cooperation agreement with the Open Society Mental Health Initiative on a project that will end the social exclusion of people with intellectual disabilities. The project, called the “Community for All Initiative: Macedonia,” will establish supported housing services in local communities throughout the country. This ensures that intellectually disabled individuals, many of whom have spent a lifetime in an institution, will live in local communities as equal citizens and receive individualized support from Housing Services. The Special Institution Demir Kapija (which means “iron gate” in Turkish) is the only long-stay social welfare institution for people with intellectual disabilities in Macedonia. In spite of numerous attempts to improve conditions, these residents are still unable to exercise their most basic human rights, hence the need for deinstitutionalization. This agreement is a major step by Macedonia toward fulfilling its commitment under the UN Convention of the Rights of People with Disabilities.

AEMI Hosts Global Strategy Meeting
The Access to Essential Medicines Initiative convened a global strategy meeting in New York in July 2008 to assess critical developments in the field, prioritize a medium and long-term vision for OSI’s work, and brainstorm on ways to best support civil society’s ability to advocate for access to medicines. More than 20 international experts attended to discuss mechanisms to foster innovation for medical research and development, transparency of procurement and supply processes and pharmaceutical industry behavior, and availability of medicines at a local level. Please contact Jane Li (jli@sorosny.org) for more information.

OSI Addresses Health Emergencies and Human Rights at Funders Meeting
On July 21, LAHI organized the panel discussion, “Health Emergencies:  Are Human Rights Funders Prepared?” at the International Human Rights Funders Group Meeting. The panel examined coercive government responses to health emergencies, such as locking up tuberculosis patients in South Africa, censoring information on SARS in China, and enacting laws across Africa that criminalize HIV transmission and instill mandatory HIV tests. The panel also explored pragmatic, rights-based solutions for controlling disease and concrete ways human rights funders can support these efforts. The panel featured PHP Director Françoise Girard, OSI Director of Network Programs Tawanda Mutasah, and Joe Amon, director of the HIV/AIDS program at Human Rights Watch. 

Methadone Man and Buprenorphine Babe Raise Awareness of Lifesaving Medicines for Drug Users
IHRD launched the “Where’s the Methadone?” campaign during the International AIDS Conference in Mexico City to raise awareness among HIV experts about the widespread lack of access to methadone and buprenorphine – medications for opiate dependence that are also shown to help prevent HIV and AIDS. The campaign launch featured the superheroes Methadone Man and Buprenorphine Babe, who took Mexico City by storm, handing out postcards and t-shirts with information about the need to increase access to these essential medicines. The campaign continues online through the websites www.wheresthemethadone.org/ or www.wheresthebupe.org/, as well as a Facebook group which drew more than 250 members following the AIDS conference. Visitors to the website are encouraged to sign a petition addressed to the World Health Organization and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, calling for humane and evidence-based drug treatment, including access to methadone and buprenorphine.

First NGO-Administered Methadone Maintenance Program Launched in Major Roma Community in Bulgaria
With support from the Roma Health Project, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and the Bulgarian Ministry of Health, the Initiative for Health Foundation (IHF) started a methadone maintenance program in a drop-in center for drug users from the largest Roma community in Sofia. This is the first such program in the country administered by an NGO. It came as a natural continuation and scaling up of IHF’s long experience in implementing harm reduction programs for injecting drug users and sex workers in Sofia. Although it has not instituted a Roma-only rule, the program is designed to be mainly available and appropriate for this minority group and others who lack access to similar services.

Bulgarian Roma NGOs to Partner with Government on Health Campaigns
Roma Health Project grantee Center Amalipe and its partner Roma NGO World without Borders Association launched an advocacy campaign in early 2008 to increase involvement of Roma civil society in health services directed at Roma communities in Bulgaria. The campaign is focused on the Bulgarian Human Resources Development Operational Program 2007–2013 (HRD OP), which calls for improving the health of Roma and other vulnerable groups through health information campaigns and early diagnostics of cancer. As a result of the two groups’ advocacy efforts, the HRD OP will guarantee effective partnership with community-based NGOs, particularly where health campaigns are directed at the Roma population.

Rising Voices Announces Grantees for Health-Focused Citizen Media Outreach Projects
Rising Voices, the outreach arm of Global Voices, in collaboration with the Health Media Initiative, recently sponsored a microgrant competition for new media outreach projects focused on public health issues involving marginalized populations. Over 110 proposals from health activists and organizations based in over 50 countries were received. The six selected grantees represent the most innovative applications of citizen media tools like blogs, podcasts, and online video to help further the advocacy goals of public health organizations, and to empower the communities they work with. Profiles of the six projects are listed at:
http://rising.globalvoicesonline.org/blog/2008/06/28/public-health-projects-to-use-citizen-media-to-empower-community-voices/.

Advocacy Training Camp Held in Romania for Roma Health Scholarship Participants
Responding to a lack of Roma in medical professions, the Public Health Program and the Roma Education Fund launched a scholarship program for Roma students to pursue medical and nursing studies. As part of this program, Roma students and their mentors attend advocacy training camps designed to empower them to become Roma experts in health and participate in the development and implementation of sound health policies supporting Roma inclusion. The first advocacy camp took place in Piatra Neamt, Romania in September 2008 with nearly 60 students, mentors, and trainers from Romania.

SHARP Report Highlights Advocacy Efforts of Sex Worker Groups
A new SHARP report, Our Lives Matter: Sex Workers Unite for Health and Rights, highlights the innovative contributions of advocates and sex worker groups from around the world in organizing and defining their human rights. Rigorous antiprostitution laws and policies lead to the imposition of harsh and repressive measures against sex workers worldwide. Intolerance and stigma make it difficult for sex workers to safeguard their health and lives. Our Lives Matter shows how sex worker groups in eight countries have responded to these challenges with creativity and wisdom, protesting to be free from incarceration, violence, extortion, eviction, and humiliation. The report can be found at: www.soros.org/initiatives/health/focus/sharp/articles_publications/publications/ourlivesmatter_20080724.

OSI Holds Consultations on the Global Fund’s Gender Equality Strategy
In November 2007, the Board of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria called for the development of a strategy to scale up gender-responsive programs supported by the Global Fund, with particular focus on women, girls, and sexual minorities as well as issues of sexual and reproductive rights and health. In July 2008, OSI held consultations in Cape Town, South Africa and Kathmandu, Nepal that brought together people living with HIV/AIDS, representatives of NGOs, governments, and UN agencies, and other key stakeholders, to provide feedback to the Global Fund on the development of this strategy. The Gender Equality strategy will be reviewed for adoption by the Global Fund’s Board in November 2008. Public input is welcomed by the Global Fund through the Partnership e-Forum at http://myglobalfund.org/forums/p/1952/4356.aspx#4356.

Capacity Building

OSI Holds Seminar on Health Strategies for Roma Drug Users
In late September, the Roma Health Project, IHRD, and the Initiative for Health Foundation convened a technical training in Sofia, Bulgaria for Roma activists and health service providers. The seminar provided participants with a variety of strategies and program models for incorporating, increasing, and improving their harm reduction services for Roma clients. The meeting program included interactive skills-building sessions, site visits to harm reduction projects working with Roma, and presentations and panel discussions by representatives of harm reduction organizations currently working in Roma communities.

Media and Communications Training for Romani Women Activists in Bulgaria
With support from the Health Media Initiative, Amalipe Center for Interethnic Dialogue and Tolerance and World without Borders organized two five-day training workshops in July 2008 for Romani grassroots organizations working to promote Romani women’s health in Stara Zagora and Veliko Turnovo, Bulgaria. The trainings were designed to build participants’ communication skills and confidence, to improve the sense of identity and strategic direction of their organizations, and to learn how to develop better relationships with the media. At the trainings, grassroots organization shared ideas and deepened their understanding of tools for creating effective media strategies for advocacy campaigns. A more detailed news brief about these trainings can be found online at: http://amalipe.com/en/index.php?nav=news&id=73

Courses Strengthen Legal Capacity in Access to Medicines Movement
Two courses sponsored by AEMI and LAHI on access to medicines, intellectual property, and human rights have been successfully piloted at the law faculties of the Universities of Pretoria and KwaZulu Natal in South Africa. The courses are designed for law instructors, masters of law students, civil society, and government officials in sub-Saharan Africa with an interest in these issues. Course materials are available online at: www.wcl.american.edu/pijip/go/humanrights. The pilot has led to the development of a submission to the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights to identify access to essential medicines as a component of the right to health, outline the standards governing it, and establish a working group to ensure its implementation at the national level; and to the planning of country campaigns in Rwanda, Tanzania, and Zambia. The hope is for these short courses to be taught annually, and course instructors are currently adapting a version for parliamentary trainings at the SADC Parliamentary Forum. 

New Report Highlights How Intellectual Property Law Can Be Used to Improve Access to Medicines
The Access to Essential Medicines Initiative recently published Playing by the Rules: Using Intellectual Property Law and Policy to Improve Access to Essential Medicines. The publication documents developments in the use of intellectual property law and policy to ensure improved access and lower prices for drugs. The report includes six case studies on South Africa, Thailand, Brazil, the Philippines, Rwanda, and Kenya. The publication was written for activists in non-technical language and highlights options that might be pursued in getting cheaper drugs. The report is available in English and Russian.

Media Training for Women Harm Reduction Communicators from Ukraine and Russia
In July 2008, the Health Media Initiative sponsored a five-day media communication and advocacy training for ten organizations from Ukraine and Russia working in the field of harm reduction with a particular focus on women’s issues. This training aimed to develop personal communication skills and confidence; help participants shape their messages to be more powerful and persuasive; enable participants to work with local media more effectively; and improve participants’ advocacy skills by being more proactive and strategic.

Parsons-OSI Fellowships on Information Communication Technology for Advocacy
2008 marks the second year of the Parsons-OSI fellowship program whereby Communication Design and Technology graduate students from Parsons The New School for Design were placed with health and human rights NGOs to develop information communication technology for advocacy. Four Public Health Program grantees hosted fellows this year: African Palliative Care Association, Behind the Mask, Hospice and Palliative Care Association of South Africa, and Mental Health and Society. Parsons-OSI fellows worked in-country for six-weeks from May to July and will continue to provide ongoing offsite support to NGOs for several months this fall. 

Joint Initiatives

OSI and IRF Launch Tipping the Balance Report in Ukraine
A new report released in June by LAHI, IHRD, and the International Renaissance Foundation profiles five organizations in Ukraine that have successfully integrated legal services into HIV prevention and treatment programs. The organizations—located in Kyiv, Kherson, Lviv, Nikolaev, and Poltava—have increased access to legal services by placing lawyers at locations where drug users go for needle exchanges, counseling, and drug dependence treatment. Likewise, the programs have increased access to harm reduction by drawing in new clients who come for the legal services and stay for the HIV prevention services. Tipping the Balance: Why Legal Services Are Essential to Health Care for Drug Users in Ukraine is available online at: www.soros.org/initiatives/health/focus/law/articles_publications/publications/balance_20080624.

Legal Support to Advance Palliative Care in Africa
In a four-way collaboration, the Open Society Initiative for East Africa, LAHI, the International Palliative Care Initiative, and the General Africa Initiatives, have given a grant to the African Palliative Care Association to implement a project in four African countries (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and South Africa) that links palliative care providers with legal experts to ensure that legal restrictions that hinder drug availability are adequately addressed. In many African countries, access to even the most basic pain-relieving medication to treat opportunistic infections is legally restricted. For more information, please contact Anne Gathumbi at agathumbi@osiea.org.

National Palliative Care Program Established in Ukraine
Following the efforts of the International Renaissance Foundation, IPCI, and the All-Ukrainian Council for Patients’ Rights and Security (AUCPRS), the Ukraine Ministry of Health created a Coordination Council on Palliative Care in April 2008. After a number of consultations, the Coordination Council, co-chaired Dr. Yuriy Gubsky of AUCPRS and Deputy Minister of Health Zinowy Mytnyk, launched the National Program of Palliative Care 2010-2015. The program includes provisions for the integration of palliative care into the medical curriculum, the development of delivery systems, the establishment of the first national palliative care center, and recommended changes for opioid availability for pain control. IPCI and the All-Ukrainian Palliative Care Association are supporting the Coordination Council with technical assistance.

Other News and Announcements

OSI Appoints Marine Buissonnière as PHP Deputy Director
The Public Health Program welcomed Marine Buissonnière as its new Deputy Director on August 25. From 2003 to 2007, Buissonnière served as Secretary-General of Médecins Sans Frontières, where she oversaw coordination and cooperation between the 19 sections that make up the MSF movement. In that capacity, she was a member of the Steering Committee of MSF’s campaign for access to essential medicines. Before that, she was Head of Mission of MSF in Seoul; Operations Director for MSF in Tokyo (where she oversaw MSF’s campaign to promote access to essential drugs for HIV, TB, and malaria); Head of Mission in Gaza City and East Jerusalem; and Administrator of MSF in Beijing. She is currently a member of the board of MSF, and of SOFT (Solidarités Franco-Tchétchènes). Buissonnière holds a Masters in Public Policy (International Relations) and a Health and Health Policy Certificate from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University, as well as a Masters in International Management from the MBA Institute in France. She is fluent in English, French, and Mandarin.

Public Health Watch Announces New TB/HIV Grant Initiative
The Public Health Watch (PHW) project has announced a new grant initiative to support civil society monitoring and advocacy on policy and program efforts to reduce the burden of TB in people living with HIV in East and Southern Africa, with a particular focus on prevention, detection, and treatment. PHW will select six organizations to attend a TB/HIV training and proposal preparation workshop in Ethiopia in November to coincide with the meeting of the TB/HIV core working group of the Stop TB Partnership. Projects will begin in January 2009.

SHARP Grantees Receive Prominent Awards at AIDS Conference
SHARP congratulates the Empower Foundation of Thailand and the Asia Pacific Network of Sex Workers (APNSW) for receiving awards at the XVII International AIDS Conference (IAC) in Mexico City. The Empower Foundation was selected as a recipient of the UNAIDS and IAC Community Program Committees’ Red Ribbon Award honoring exceptional grassroots leadership in responding to the AIDS epidemic.  APNSW was presented with the 2008 Award for Action on HIV/AIDS and Human Rights from the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network and Human Rights Watch, an award which recognizes outstanding individuals and organizations that protect the rights and dignity of people living with or affected by HIV/AIDS. These awards honor the vital efforts of Empower and APNSW to call attention to and demand action to address the rights abuses faced by sex workers.

Upcoming Events

OSI at the 2008 World Conference on Lung Health
The World Health Organization’s Stop TB Department and Public Health Watch will co-sponsor a discussion on human rights in multidrug-resistant TB patient care during the 2008 Union World Conference on Lung Health in Paris this October. This event will bring together public health officials, human rights and community activists, and healthcare providers to debate and discuss the ethical and human rights challenges highlighted by the growing epidemic of drug-resistant TB, with a particular focus on involuntary detention in treatment facilities. PHW has also organized a symposium on tuberculosis treatment literacy during the conference. The symposium, Treatment Literacy: A Vital Weapon in Battling TB-HIV,will focus on strategies for empowering people to understand their own health needs and to advocate for proper treatment from healthcare providers, government, and workplaces. Representatives from community-based organizations implementing TB-HIV treatment literacy programs will provide insight from their experiences on how to use treatment literacy as part of a comprehensive and rights-based response to TB and HIV/AIDS in resource-poor settings.

IPCI to Co-Sponsor End of Life Care Seminar in Tajikistan
In late September, the End-of-Life Nursing Consortium (ELNEC), with the support and participation of the International Palliative Care Initiative and the Open Society Institute Assistance Foundation in Tajikistan, will teach a weeklong course in Dushanbe that focuses on the assessment and management of the pain and symptoms of patients with life-limiting illnesses. The faculty, comprised of physicians and nurses, will be instructing physician/nurse teams from the Ministry of Health, national medical centers, regional cancer and AIDS centers, and the Dushanbe Health Department on palliative care interventions that can be delivered to patients in their institutions.

IPCI to Sponsor and Participate in Pediatric Palliative Care Meeting in Italy
In October, the Fondazione Livia Benini, with the support of IPCI, will bring to Florence international palliative care leaders from various disciplines to review the current status and medical advances in pediatric pain relief and palliative care. The Fondazione Livia Benini is globally recognized as the first and leading resource center for pediatric palliative care that supports research and the education and training of healthcare professionals and the public on the methods to reduce suffering in children. The October meeting will be a follow-up to the landmark convening the foundation held 25 years ago calling attention to the under treatment of pain in pediatric patients. The meeting produced the World Health Organization’s first monograph entitled “Cancer Pain Relief and Palliative Care for Children” that has been translated into several languages and has since become the standard of care throughout the world.

Regional Drug Availability Workshop to be Held in Moldova
A regional drug workshop will take place in Chisinau, Moldova from October 27-30 co-sponsored by IPCI, the Access to Essential Medicines Initiative, and the Pain & Policy Studies Group. The workshop will assemble country teams from Moldova, Ukraine, and Armenia to assess the availability and accessibility of opioid analgesics for pain and palliative care. Participants will come from ministries of health, national drug agencies, oncology institutes, national hospice and palliative care associations, and national pharmacists associations. The four-day workshop will include an overview of the imperative to treat pain, the international drug control framework, country reports delivered by each team, and the formulation (or revision) of country action plans to guide the way to better patient access to opioid analgesics for moderate to severe pain.

Donor Dialogue: Sex Work and Trafficking
SHARP, in collaboration with Creating Resources for Empowerment in Action (CREA) and the Network of Sex Work Projects (NSWP), is organizing a “Donor Dialogue” in December in New York to discuss strategies on combating the conflation of sex work and trafficking. The last decade has seen increased global attention and resources to combat trafficking, particularly into the sex industry. Unfortunately, the laws, policies and programs being widely established conflate trafficking and sex work, and ineffectively address issues of migration and mobility. In many cases, anti-trafficking legislation is a tactic to criminalize consensual adult commercial sex. As a result, the rights and health of sex workers and migrants are flagrantly violated in the name of saving or rescuing girls and women. This “Donor Dialogue on Sex Work and Trafficking” will examine the language and terms used to describe sex work, migration and trafficking, and how these concepts are distinct but inter-related. Through an interactive discussion, participants will create recommendations on how to support anti-trafficking efforts that affirm the rights of sex workers, migrants and others affected by anti-trafficking legislation. For more information, please contact Heather Doyle at hdoyle@sorosny.org. 

Medicine Stock Out Campaign Planning Meeting in Kenya
With support from AEMI, the Southern African Treatment Advocacy Movement and Health Action International Africa will convene a meeting of approximately 30 representatives of civil society organizations, health advocates, and media representatives in early October in Nairobi, Kenya. The seminar aims to plan an advocacy campaign addressing the critical problem of medicine stock outs in East and Southern Africa.   Small grants will be given to participating organizations to carry out the campaign. Please contact Jane Li (jli@sorosny.org) for more information.

IPCI and IRF Co-Sponsor a Three-Week Clinical Training Course in Ukraine
A three-week palliative care clinical training course will be held in Kyiv in early November. Supported by IPCI, the International Renaissance Foundation, San Diego Hospice & Palliative Care, and the All-Ukrainian Council on Patient Rights and Safety, the course will train 32 physician/nurse teams from 15 Ukrainian institutions that include AIDS, cancer, geriatric, and hospice and palliative care centers. A three day sensitization workshop will be held at the beginning of the course and will include 40 additional clinical healthcare professionals who will be introduced to the basic concepts of palliative care. A half-day meeting and press conference will launch the training and bring together leaders and stakeholders from various departments such as the Ministry of Health in order to call attention to the need for and benefits of palliative care within healthcare institutions.

Workshop to Develop Budget Monitoring and Advocacy Projects
The Health Budget Monitoring and Advocacy Project (HBMAP) in collaboration with the Center for Economic Governance in AIDS in Africa (CEGAA) will conduct a two-day workshop for selected organizations responding to a May/June 2008 call for Letters of Intent. The workshop will assist participants in developing a strategic vision for their projects as well as provide a practical overview of budget analysis and advocacy, in order for participants to develop strong project proposals and workplans. Organizations participating in the workshop include the Eurasian Harm Reduction Network, All Together Center (Ukraine), Call to Health Alliance (Azerbaijan), Hospice Casa Sperantei (Romania), Humanitarian and Charitable Roma Association “Mesecina” Gostivar and ESE (Macedonia), International Treatment Preparedness Coalition (Russia), and St. Petersburg Research Institute of Psychoneurology (Russia). The workshop will take place on October 17-18 in Bucharest, Romania.