Alliance showcases its work at Asia HIV/AIDS conference
29 July 2005
The Alliance’s work throughout the Asia region featured in 15 sessions during the formal conference programme of the Seventh International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific. The Alliance’s Frontiers Prevention Project in India and Cambodia was a particular highlight of the conference with a range of presentations detailing the project’s work with populations most at risk from the epidemic in those countries, including men who have sex with men, sex workers and injecting drug users.
Khana, the Alliance’s linking organisation in Cambodia, presented their emerging work with men who have sex with men (MSM). This includes supporting the development of peer outreach work, condom promotion and distribution and information, education and communication development. They showed how their work is contributing to successful advocacy, for example, increasing the visibility of MSM issues with local health authorities and helping to get the National Centre for HIV/AIDS to include MSM as a vulnerable population in the national AIDS programme’s plans.
Alliance India, which is implementing the Frontiers Prevention Project in Andhra Pradesh, presented on different aspects of their programme at a number of poster and oral sessions. They also held a highly successful skills building workshop based on the manual Setting up and managing Sexual Health Clinical Services in Resource Poor Settings. The manual was originally developed in Andhra Pradesh using the experience of the Frontiers Prevention Project in establishing sexual health services in some 26 sites in 14 districts across the state.
The Alliance also teamed up with the Lawyers Collective of India and the AIDS Council of New South Wales in Australia to run a skills building workshop, which explored what it takes to build social, political and legal structures that enable HIV prevention, treatment and care. A copy of the presentation that accompanied the workshop is available.
Finally, the Alliance ran a familiarisation session on the Code of Good Practice for NGOs Responding to HIV/AIDS. Chaired by the UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy on AIDS in Asia, Dr Nafis Sadik, the session provided an overview of the code, including what’s in it, why it’s important and how it could be used to enhance the community response to AIDS in Asia.
For more information on the Alliance’s participation in ICAAP 2005 or the Frontiers Prevention Project please contact Joseph O’Reilly.
