Europe & CIS

Partnerships and progress in living with HIV

Russia/CIS, 3-5 May 2008 – The “Besedka” Community Dialogue Space opened its doors to participants and guests of the Second Eastern Europe and Central Asia AIDS Conference (EECAAC). The Besedka was a forum for frank discussion of the questions that most concern people living with HIV, representatives of HIV-services organizations, governments, international organizations, experts and journalists.

“It is very important that for the first time in such a high level conference, an informal part will take place and our communities’ representatives will get a chance to be heard by media, governments and international organizations. We will also have a unique opportunity to exchange experiences and share best practices from our region,” said Vladimir Zhovtyak, President of Eastern Europe and Central Asia Networks of People Living with HIV and AIDS.

In ‘Meet the Leaders’ sessions, Global Fund Executive Director Michel Kazatchkine and UNAIDS Executive Director Peter Piot answered sensitive questions on harm reduction programmes, substitution therapy policies and ARV availability after the completion of Global Fund grants, as well as discussing perspectives on partnership between governmental and civil society organizations.

“The most important fact is that the entire three-day “Besedka” programme was compiled by the communities. They identified topics, organized and led the discussions themselves,” said Anastasia Kamlyk, Besedka coordinator at the UN Development Programme.

The sessions focused on issues such as HIV-related travel restrictions, parenting among discordant couples, substitution therapy policies and HIV prevention in prisons.

Many Besedka participants spoke openly about their HIV+ status and actively answered journalists’ questions. At the same time, many people in the region are still unsure of whether to disclose their status.  The decision to live openly with HIV was discussed during a special session that featured a screening of a recent special episode of the television programme “Spornaya Territoriya with Matvei Ganapolsky”, filmed in conjunction with the Besedka, that was devoted to living openly with HIV. The episode will be broadcast internationally on the Mir television network on 13 May. Participants representing different CIS countries shared their arguments “for” and “against” disclosure.

The session looked for answers to what we, as a society, need to do so that opening one’s status makes living with HIV easier.

The cultural portion of the programme included an open photo competition and a photo exhibition by the Estonian Network of People Living with HIV and AIDS titled “We Are People!”. 

The Community Dialogue Space was organized through a joint collaboration between the UNDP, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the United Nations Joint Programme on AIDS (UNAIDS) and the East European and Central Asian Union of PLHIV Organisations (ECUO).

The official website of the conference is at www.eecaac.org.

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