Involving injecting drug users - Alksandr Ivanov, Ukraine
Twenty six year old Aleksandr Ivanov has a long history of injecting drug use, three criminal convictions and is living with HIV. As such, he is well placed to work for Blagodiynist and its programme with 1,500 inmates at Olshansk Penitentiary.
While completing his last term in the prison, out of curiosity he visited Blagodiynist’s self-help group for injecting drug users and people living with HIV/AIDS. He soon became not only an enthusiastic member but a committed activist, distributing information and condoms on his prison wing.
Aleksandr still visits the group regularly but, now released, his new role is as a volunteer leader for Blagodiynist, providing the members not just with advice, but also help and moral support, by talking openly about his own experiences.
Aleksandr is just one of over 44,000 current and former injecting drug users who were reached by and actively involved in work supported by the Alliance’s country office in Ukraine in 2004. Injecting drug use is the driving force behind the national epidemic. It accounts for more than 70% of HIV cases in a country where one per cent of the population is infected – the highest prevalence in Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States.
Almost all aspects of the Alliance’s work in Ukraine take into account issues around injecting drug use. Alliance Ukraine supports approximately 89 NGOs in Ukraine to provide focused HIV prevention and care services. The programme also works closely with Ukraine AIDS centres to provide treatment to those that require it. The Alliance has paid particular attention to encouraging, at all levels and stages of the work, the active involvement of people who use drugs – from participatory assessments to designing projects, developing information materials and influencing decisionmakers.
In many cases, the combination of services, support and involvement offered by the partners has helped people to turn their lives around. For example, Ivan Shekker, a 45-yearold who used drugs and alcohol for two decades, is now a paid outreach worker for Club Eney, a group run entirely by former injecting drug users. The NGO provides a full range of services to some 1,000 current users in the city of Kiev. Ivan’s average day can involve anything from running one of the nine needle exchanges to giving condoms and medical advice to sex workers on the streets.
While he has not used drugs for five years, Ivan still attends a support group at the Club, both to gain and give support. As he says: “I have a good relationship with those who are still actively using … I understand very well how thin the straw is that I am grasping, how narrow the margin between them and me … It is brotherhood, people who have gone through the same circles of hell … It is very important to have each other.”
