10 October 2011

What else is on BORDERNETwork´s agenda by the end of 2011?

♦ November 8-10, 2011, Rostock (DE) and Stettin (PL)

The BORDERNETwork project and the Aids-Hilfe Potsdam implement the second 3-day medical training workshop and exchange visit for HIV treatment practitioners and infection disease specialists on HIV and Hepatitis B and C co-infections (WP7). For more information: al@aidshilfe-potsdam.de
 

♦ November 14-16, 2011, Vienna (AT)

The BORDERNETwork project, the Aids Hilfe Wien and the Health and Social Development Foundation Sofia conduct the second 3‐days training seminar in effective participatory models for community based HIV prevention among migrants/ethnic minorities (WP8). Three effective European and national models (A&M, PaKoMi, POL) will be illuminated in interactive workshops. For more information: s.vassileva@hesed.bg and lex@aids.at
 

♦ November 18, 2011, Berlin (DE)

Robert-Koch Institute (RKI) organises the BORDERNETwork sentinel surveillance stakeholder meeting (WP5). The aim of this meeting is to present the first results from the STI- Sentinel surveillance in the four survey countries Austria, Bulgaria, Romania and Slovak Republic. With participation of ECDC, WHO, further international and national experts, epidemiologists and clinical professionals difficulties and options for improvement of the sentinel system will be outlined. For more information: HaarK@rki.de

♦ November 23-24, 2011, Rostock (DE)

The mobile AIDS and sexual education team (MAT) Rostock conducts an expert meeting: “Sexuality and Communication”, celebrating also the 20th anniversary of the organisation (WP4). A cross-border working meeting of German and Polish partners (MRI) will follow discussing the development of Curriculum in communication and counselling competence for medical university students. For more information: info@mat-mv.de

♦ November 29, 2011, Stettin (PL)

The BORDERNETwork Polish partners organise Youth Film Days on the occasion of the World AIDS Day 2011, for more information: malgorzatakr@wp.pl

9 October 2011

What has been up in the network over the summer time?

Cross-border cooperation (WP4)

♦ In July 2011 Austria and Slovak Partners (Model Region III) met in Vienna. Present were collaborators of PRIMA, Bratislava, AHW and SOPHIE-A Place of Education, Vienna. The main topics of exchange were HIV/STI prevention among MSM, the work in the gay scene in Vienna and the services for sex  workers. The partners made an on- site visit to the premises of SOPHIE and got impressions from the outreach work and the other services offered there.

♦ In September 2011 Estonian and Latvian partners (Model Region IV) met in Riga.Two colleagues from Estonian National Institute for Health Development visited Latvia’s Association for Family Planning and Sexual Health „Papardes zieds” and Infectology Center of Latvia. The meetings included also on-site visits to low threshold VCT centres located in Kuldiga and a drug treatment and rehabilitation house. Besides the Latvian co-ordinator of the bio-behavioural surveillance among sex workers from the AIDS Counselling Centre in Riga had a great opportunity to get acquainted with the Estonian experience, as the survey’s data collection has already been successfully completed in Tallinn.

♦ In October 2011 cross-border working meeting of German (MAT, Rostock) and Polish (SPWSZ, Stettin) partners took place in Stettin (PL).Main topics of discussion were the oncoming two expert workshops in Rostock in November (read more below), the conduction of pilot communication trainings with medical students at the University of Rostock and the train-the trainers-courses (WP4).

Intergrated bio-behavioural surveillance among Sex Workers (WP5)

The field phase of the international second-generation sentinel surveillance among sex workers in 6 EU capital cities and one border area is close to an end. 211 sex workers were recruited for the survey in Tallinn, in Bratislava and Bucharest 200 each, in Sofia, 120 female and 80 male sex workers. In Riga 100 respondents have been reached so far, the data collection has just been completed. The field phase in the last survey location Berlin/Brandenburg/Polish border area will be prolonged till March 2012, due to difficulties in the recruitment. Therefore the data collected in Germany and Poland will not be part of the first international comparative assessment.
 

Piloting HIV/STI Diagnostic for key vulnerable groups (WP6)

In the period between June and December 2011 the partners collaborating under BORDERNETwork WP6, who are at same time prevention and diagnostic service providers, have the task to conduct a pilot HIV/STIs diagnostic campaign among selected most-at-risk group according to the local contexts. Thus in Estonia, partner notification and referral to STI services is being offered for IDUs and their sexual partners. In Latvia, male partners of female sex workers are addressed with STI testing offers (HIV, HCV, HBsAg, Syphilis). In Bulgaria male sex workers from marginalised Roma community are reached with diagnostic offers for Chlamydia and Gonorrhoea. In Germany female sex workers in the German-Polish border area will be offered Chlamydia and Gonorrhoea testing also. In Romania and Slovak Republic low threshold HIV/STI testing (mobile ambulance) is offered to i.d. SWs and their  partners and to homeless people. In Poland the access to HIV, HCV and Syphilis diagnostic will be increased for the local community of young people and for women working in sex business.

A special pilot MSM campagn is conducted in Vienna

For more information visit: www.aids.at

12 August 2011

Together with the preparation of the Interim Report BORDERNETwork announces the launch of several assessment survey reports (project milestones and Deliverables ) conducted in the first project’s phase:

◆ WP6 – Access to early HIV/STI diagnostic for key vulnerable groups

The phase of mapping and situation assessment encompassed:

a. Joint-situation assessment report based on local country profiles of 8 EU and 1 NON-EU countries and literature review outlining major barriers to effective early HIV/STI diagnostic.

Download Report:

b. Assessment of the quality of HIV/STI VCT services within the region, based on the Code of Good Practice for NGOs (IPPF) compiling experience on self-assessment of VCT services, 17 services in 8 countries.

Download Report:

◆ WP7 - Referral, management, treatment and care of HIV/STIs and co-infections

- Stocktaking of country specific medical conditions in HIV and co-infections diagnostic and treatment with participation of 11 HIV treatment centres from 5 EU countries and 1 NON-EU country from CEE.
 

Download Report:

◆ WP8- Participatory approaches to community based HIV/STIs prevention in ethnic minority and migrant groups

- Assessment survey among NGOs in 10 European countries (8 EU and 2 NON-EU countries) on existing models and good practices of community-based participatory prevention among Roma communities, other ethic minorities and migrant groups.
 

Download Report:

10 June 2011

BORDERNETwork’s Medical Workshop (WP7) and Hospitation on Treatment of HIV Co-infections will take place in between June 27-29 2011 in Potsdam, organized by AHP.

BORDERNETwork at the German-Austrian AIDS Congress - DÖAK 2011

 
From June 15 to 18 2011 the city of Hanover will host the oncoming congress DÖAK 2011.

BORDERNETwork will be presented at the congress through 3 posters:
      

 Highly Active Prevention             Bio-Behavioural Surveillance         QA in Youth HIV Prevention

                                                     among Sex Workers in                   and SRHR (WP9)

                                                     7 EU Countries (WP5)

BORDERNETwork at the European Region HIV Conference 2011

Between May 25 and 27 the European Conference “HIV in Europe – Unity and Diversity” took place in Tallinn, Estonia. The BORDERNETwork associated partner. NIHD was one of the conference co-organizers.

The BORDERNETwork project was actively presented during the conference, read more:
 

◆   On May 25 the project participated in the Lunch time workshop of the European HIV/AIDS projects organized by EAHC, attended by more than 50 conference participants.

The project leader, Elfriede Steffan made a presentation of BORDERNETwork.

◆  On May 26 the project BORDERNETwork project Satellite Workshop took place organised by NIHD, Estonia and SPI Forschung, Germany.
The workshop, which is one of the project’s Delievrables addressed experts and policy makers from European institutions and other European projects and HIV/STI service providers. The workshop was moderated by Elfriede Steffan, SPI and Kristi Rüütel, NIHD. The aim of the workshop was to discuss and exchange experience on successes and barriers in improving of early access to HIV and STI services and referral and treatment for key population groups (with special focus on people who inject drugs and sex workers).

Download programme of the workshop:
 

Along with the presentation of the BORDERNETwork project and its work component Early Access to HIV/STIs Diagnostic of for key population groups (work package 6), the results of a recently conducted assessment survey for self-evaluation of VCT services (based on the NGO Code of good Practice) were presented. A good practice example of low-threshold HIV/STI diagnostic was shared by the Latvian project collaborating partner LIC, Riga. In the second part of the workshop international ECDC/WHO guidance and recommendations were presented as well as a good practice experience from an early HIV/STI community based diagnostic campaign in Belgium. Following overview of 2 further EU-funded project, COBATEST and Imp.Ac.T. was delivered and opportunities for collaboration with BORDERNETwork explored.

The BORDERNETwork satellite workshop was attended by 40 participants.

Download workshop report and presentations:
 

◇   A poster on the project component Quality of Youth HIV/STI Prevention and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (work package 9) was exhibited during the whole conference.
Its main focus was on the development and adaptation of Quality Improvement and Evaluation on-line Tool QUIET which will be available by the end of the year.

◆    On May 27 BORDERNETwork partner meeting on Work Package 6 took place. The meeting was attended by 17 partners from 7 EU and 1 Non-EU countries, involved in Work package 6. Main focus of the meeting was to outline the stage of progress of the cooperation under the work package and to present and discuss the partner protocols for piloting of HIV/STI diagnostic services and referral, which will be conducted in the next phase.

16th May 2011

◆  Project´s external Evaluation (WP3)

The tender for external evaluator of the project has been successfully completed. BORDERNETwork is glad to present to the project’s network and to the further stakeholders Prof. Dr. Sibylle Nideröst. Representing the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland, School of Social Work she will conduct the external evaluation between May 2011 and August 2012.

Prof. Dr. Sibylle Nideröst studied sociology, social work and constitutional law at the University of Zurich, Switzerland and received a PhD in sociology in 2007. Since 2009, she is a full professor at the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland, School of Social Work, in Olten. She is the responsible of the research foci "people in the context of HIV/AIDS" of the Institute Integration and Participation. Over the last 10 years, she realized numerous qualitative and quantitative research projects, in cooperation with European partners (EUROSUPPORT Studies 4 and 5) as well as nationwide.

We wish successful collaboration!!!!

15th April 2011

◆  Save the Date

Expert cross-border exchange meeting between Austrian and Slovak medical doctors will take place in Vienna on 6th of May in the frame of „HIV/STI Sentinel surveillance “ (WP5), organized by AIDS Hilfe Vienna.

Read more:

◆ A coordination on-site visit to Rumanian Bordernet work partner was conducted by SPI on 30th of March

Read more:

◆  International Capacity Building POL Training Seminar (WP8)took place on March 28-30 in Bucharest. 21 professionals from 7 EU and 2 ENP-countries attended the training. Main objective was to deliver the methodology of Popular Opinion Leaders (POL) as evidence based effective comunity based HIV prevention among migrants/ ethnic minority groups.

◆ On 3-4 March RKI conducted together with AHW in on-site visit to Austrian HIV/ STI diagnostic and treatment centres in the frame of Sentinel Surveillance (WP5).
 

Read more:

25th March 2011

Steering Committee Meeting

The second steering committee meeting of the project took place in Berlin on March 10 and 11 2011.

Read more

8th March 2011

Save the Date

Medical Training Workshop and Exchange Visit on HIV and Hepatitis B/C Co-infections

BORDERNETwork and AIDS-HILFE Potsdam organise a 3-days medical workshop in June 27-29 2011 in Potsdam, Germany as part of the project’s Work Package 7: Referral, management, treatment and care of HIV and Co-infections. The workshop addresses HIV-treatment experts and medical specialists from various treatment settings and will be attended by participants from Germany, Estonia, Bulgaria, Romania and Ukraine.

Read more:

15th February 2011

SPI Forschung has opened a call for tender for the external evaluation of BORDERNETwork. The objective of the external evaluation is to measure the grade of success of the project against the formulated specific objectives and the most relevant output and outcome indicators.

The call is addressing evaluation experts with experience in inter-country and interdisciplinary cooperation in the field of HIV/AIDS/STIs at European level with special focus on Central, Eastern and South Eastern Europe.

Read more:

10th February 2011

 
BORDERNETwork oncoming events in 2011

◆     Second European Experts Meeting on HIV youth prevention (WP9)

The meeting „Accountability and evidence based evaluation in youth prevention and sexual and reproductive health and rights“ will take place on February 21 and 22, in Vienna, Austria, hosted by Aids Hilfe Wien. Youth HIV prevention and sexual health promotion experts from 6 EU and 4 ENP countries will engage with an online quality development and improvement tool for HIV/STI prevention and SRH promotion actions.

Read more: 

◆    Second Project Steering Committee Meeting (WP1)

The meeting will take place on March 10 and 11 in Berlin, hosted by the co-ordinator SPI Forschung. 8 associated partners from 6 countries and further collaborating partners will take part in the meeting.

 ◆    International Capacity Building Training Seminar (WP8)

The training seminar in the method POL (Popular Opinion Leader) for Participatory Community-based HIV/STI Prevention for ethnic minorities (Roma) and migrant groups will take place on March 28 till 30 in Bucharest, hosted by the Romanian partner ARAS. The training delivered by the Bulgarian trainer team of HESED is addressed at HIV/STI prevention community based workers, cultural mediators, community health and social assistants, peer leader and educators from ethnic and migrant communities.

Read more:

◆    European HIV Conference 2011 takes place in Estonia

Registration to the European HIV Conference with a special focus on the accomplishments and challenges concerning HIV prevention, treatment and care in Eastern European countries has been opened. The Conference will take place in Tallinn, Estonia, from 25th to 27th of May, 2011. It is expected to bring up to 500 public health experts to Tallinn from nearly 53 countries of European Region.

The event is co-organised by the Estonian BORDERNETwork partner National Institute for Health Development in cooperation with World Health Organisation, United Nations Offices on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and other international organisations. European HIV Conference 2011 has been funded by the European Health programme 2008-2013.

We are very glad to announce that BORDERNETwork will host a satellite workshop in the frame of the conference, more information about that will follow soon.

Read more:

www.aids2011.com

31st January 2011

On January 24 and 25, joint SPI and RKI team conducted an on-site visit to Model Region III. In Vienna a cross-border meeting of Austrian and Slovak partners took place on January 24th. Main focus of the meeting was the revitalisation of sentinel surveillance network set up during the former project BORDERNET. The partners from AHW, Vienna and PRIMA, Bratislava reported on the stage of progress with the recruitment of sentinel sites, initial data reporting and data flow. In addition a first cross-border exchange meeting of the medical doctors, participating in the survey was planned to take place in Vienna in May 2011. More information will follow in the coming months.

On the next day SPI and RKI team met in Bratislava with the NGO PRIMA and the medical expert from the National HIV Reference Laboratory subcontracted for the Slovak sentinel surveillance. The Infecology clinic of the Slovak Medical University has also been visited, and the collaboration under WP5 and WP7 discussed.

Read more:

2nd December 2010

On World AIDS Day, 1 December, the Executive Agency for Health and Consumers launched a new brochure "Joining together to tackle HIV/AIDS in Europe“ featuring 9 EU funded project as good practice examples of response to HIV/AIDS in Europe. One of projects presented is BORDERNETwork.

Download the brochure here

15th November 2010

Prevention Tram
The BORDERNETwork Polish partners from Szczecin (Model Region I) organised the third edition of the Prevention Tram on August 28th, September 11th, October 2nd and on October 16th also with participation of the German partners MAT from Rostock and Abendrot from Anklam.
AN old street tram car was decorated with balloons, posters and banners with information about the BORDERNETwork Project and DADU Association, which co-organized the action. During a free-of-charge ride in historic tram HIV/STI prevention was carried out.
 

 Read more:

5th November 2010

From October 20 to 22, 2010 a joint SPI and RKI team conducted on-site visit in Bulgaria in the frame of the HIV/STI sentinel surveillance (WP5). During the visit the BORDERNETwork project had a meeting in the Bulgarian Ministry of Health, “National Programme for Prevention and Control of HIV/STIs”, where the preliminary results from Bulgaria were presented and possibilities for cooperation explored.

Besides 4 of the sentinel sites (STI clinics and outpatient STI centres) participating in the survey were visited in the cities of Sofia and Plovdiv and important issued related to data collection and reporting discussed.

Considering the Roma community as one of the vulnerable communities with regard to HIV/STIs in Bulgaria, an often client group of the sentinel services, an on-site visit was conducted into the Roma neighbourhood Stolipinovo in the city of Plovdiv. A very fruitful and informative discussion with a local community based service provider, the NGO Roma took place.

 Read more:

29th October 2010

From October 18 to 20, 2010 BORDERNETwork conducted Exchange Seminar on participatory community-based HIV/STI prevention in Sofia, Bulgaria. Organised by the Health and Social Development Foundation (HESED), the seminar focused on effective experience in community involvement of ethnic minority communities and migrant groups and took place in the Roma neighbourhood Fakulteta in Sofia.

15 participants from 9 countries, 7 EU (Austria, Bulgaria, Estonia, Germany, Latvia, Romania, Slovak Republic), and 2 ENP-countries (Serbia, Bosnia&Herzegovina) exchanged experience on effective models, difficulties and lessons learned from participatory prevention among minority/migrant groups.

Among the participatory prevention and research projects presented and discussed in detail were: the Park Project, conducted by Aids Hilfe Wien in Vienna, the PaKoMi Project conducted by Deutsche Aids Hilfe (DAH) and The Social Science Research Centre Berlin (WZB) in 4 German cities, the Estonian Aids & Mobility project, conducted by AISC in Tallinn, the POL model conducted by HESED in Sofia and by PROI in Sarajevo.

Read more

As a next step of the cooperation exchange in this area (see WP8) a capacity building training will take place in Bucharest, Romania in March 2011.
 

15th October 2010

The SPI conducted the first on-site visit to Model Region IV of BORDERNETwork. On October 5 and 6, 2010 the SPI coordination team visited Estonia, had working meetings and discussions with the National Institute for Health Development (NIHD) and the AIDS Information and Support Centre (AISC) in Tallinn and visited sex workers and IDUs sites, part of the services of AISC.

Read more:

On October 7 2010 first meeting was conducted on the spot in Riga with the new associated partner of BORDERNETwork in Latvia, Papardes Zieds. The partner NGO will take over the role of the former Latvian partner - the Infectology Centre of Latvia (LIC) in the project. During the meeting, attended by SPI, Papardes Zieds and LIC’s representatives the modalities of partnership, the activity and budget plan of the project have been thoroughly discussed and the documents for the amendment request to EC prepared.

Read more:

On this occasion the network co-ordinator is glad to welcome the Latvia’s Association for Family Planning and Sexual Health (Papardes Zieds) on board of BORDERNETwork project and to wish successful and inspiring cross-border cooperation despite the delayed start.

Who is Papardes Zieds?

Latvia's Association for Family Planning and Sexual Health "Papardes zieds" was founded on November 26,1994 and became a full member of the International Planned Parenthood Federation in 2000. "Papardes zieds" is the leading non governmental organization working in sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) field in Latvia. Every year Association implements up to 15 national and international projects on variety of sexual and reproductive health and rights issues. Since 2006 projects on development cooperation&education on global SRHR are implemented. One of the main target groups of "Papardes zieds" always has been the young people of Latvia.
 

30th September 2010

Lukas Schmuckermair, a scientific assistant of AHW, Austria, lead partner of the HIV youth prevention cooperation area (WP 9) has left the AHW team and the BORDERNETwork project since beginning of September. Rene Eichinger who has been already involved in the project as contact person for the HIV/STI sentinel surveillance (WP5) takes over also the responsibilities in charge of WP9. The project coordination wishes successful start and fruitful cooperation.  

16th August 2010

The BORDERNETwork project and The Health and Social Development Foundation, Sofia organise a 2-days exchange seminar on Participatory Community Involvement in HIV Prevention on October 18-20 2010 in Sofia, Bulgaria.        

26th July 2010

On the occasion of the 18th International AIDS Conference Aids Hilfe Wien and SPI Research Berlin organized lunchtime seminar: “Quality In HIV/AIDS Youth Prevention” in Vienna on 20 July 2010 with participation of 70 youth prevention experts and  activists from more than 10 European Countries. The meeting ended with a Red Ribbon Visibility event on the stairs of the City Library in Vienna:

5th July 2010 

The project’s kick-off meeting took place in Berlin between June 30 and July 2, 2010 with participation of 11 associated partners, the main partner SPI and 4 collaborating partners. 34 participants altogether from 8 countries were present. 

Read more and download meeting’s documents here.