Ukraine celebrates progress on World AIDS Day
18 December 2006
Young art against AIDS
Over 300 children and volunteers participated in ‘Young art against AIDS’, a charity fair for World AIDS Day, organised by Alliance Ukraine. The main theme of the exhibition was to not let any disease create mistrust, contempt and hatred, especially towards children.
From 1-3 December 2006, over 2,000 people attended the event at the Kiev art gallery Lavra, and approximately US $3,600 was raised through donations and the sale of artworks, which will be spent meeting the needs of children with HIV in the Bila Tserkva orphanage.
Art by children and young people was on display, along with work by famous artists and photographers. Visitors and their children were able to take part in master classes to learn how to draw, make beads, use clay, and other handicrafts, and to paint a giant group picture.
Keep living!
Аlliance Ukraine provided financial and technical support to Ukraine’s network of people with HIV for a public event for World AIDS Day called ‘Keep Living!’ covering 46 cities and towns across Ukraine. Activists and local non-governmental organisations organised press conferences, TV and radio broadcasts, memorial ceremonies, concerts and theatre performances, information fairs, training for young people and visits to people with HIV in hospitals.
Cooperation and responsibility
From 11-13 December, Ukraine’s national conference of positive people and HIV-service organisations gave more than 250 representatives of national and international NGOs, governmental organisations, medical professionals, and research agencies the opportunity to review the results of their work in 2006 and to discuss strategies for 2007. Alliance Ukraine and Ukraine’s network of people with HIV organised the conference and Alliance Ukraine representatives organised and facilitated the majority of the conference’s sessions.
This year’s theme was ‘cooperation and responsibility’ and looked at the following six areas:
- Three Ones: the role of civil society in response to HIV epidemics
- fundraising and social entrepreneurship
- HIV-positive children and the prevention of mother-to-child transmission
- multidisciplinary approaches
- HIV prevention in vulnerable groups: harm reduction (with sub-sections on prevention with injecting drug users, male and female sex workers, men who have sex with men, and the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community)
- rights of people with HIV and representatives of vulnerable groups.
The conference resolution is due to be finalised by January.
Passing a university HIV test
On World AIDS Day, the Kiev Resource Centre, with support from the Alliance, organised a public event for students called ‘pass an HIV test in your university!’. The event aimed to inform young people about HIV testing, and to inform them about HIV and safer behaviour. Students at the Kiev-Mohila Academy and National Aviation University had the opportunity to participate in voluntary counselling and testing.
Working with the media
Alliance Ukraine representatives took part in national TV and radio broadcasts dedicated to World AIDS Day, informing people about the work and achievements of the Alliance, and raising issues of concern – such as those related to the sixth round of funding from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
“We have proved our ability to make progress and I am sure we will be just as successful in the future”, said Andriy Klepikov, executive director of the International HIV/AIDS Alliance in Ukraine. “We have no alternative but to halt the epidemic by introducing prevention measures, first of all among the most vulnerable populations. This task may take several years to accomplish and apart from our expertise and international funding, the political commitment and sustainable funding from the Government remains crucial.”
