The sixth conference of HIVEurope – the European PLHIV organization was held in Lisbon, Portugal. There were 32 representatives from 27 European countries.

On the meeting the statute of the organization was revised and adopted, and the new Board of Directors, consisting of six members was formed.
A member of the Q-Club was elected into the Board of Directors for the next two years.

HIVEurope is currently the largest PLHIV organization in Europe working on advocacy for rights of PLHIV. Some of the activities will be presented on the conferences in Vienna and Glasgow.

The seminar “Standardization of social services” was held in Belgrade from April 23 to 25 2010. It was a part of capacity building of NGOs working on providing better social services. The seminar was financially supported by BCIF and CNF

The goal was to prepare NGOs to successfully implement standardization of the social services they provide to their users, and thus contribute to the social welfare reformation that is eminent in Serbia.

The topics covered by the seminar were social protection, social policy, key stakeholders, legal framework, and role of social centers. Various models of service standardization were presented on the workshops.

Trainers for this seminar were Ljiljana Mihajlović and Snežana Stojanović, experienced BCIF trainers.

The Seminar on applications of ARV therapy was held in Brussels, Belgium, from June 26 to 28, and from November 6 to 8, 2009.

The Seminar was organized by EATG - European Aids Treatment Group, organization centered in Brussels, dealing with the problems of people living with HIV/AIDS. The activities of EATG are directed at educating people who are in any way involved with people living with HIV/AIDS. The mission of this organization is to provide access to medical products, medicines, and diagnostic tests that prevent the progress of illnesses and improve the quality of life for people living with HIV/AIDS in the best possible way.

The participants were people of different professions, engaged in organizations dealing with problems of PLHIV. All of the participants had the duty and the pleasure to present the situation in their country regarding problems of PLHIV. Also, everyone had an opportunity to present the work of the delegating organization, and their own activities. Two of our members from Q-Club represented Serbia on this Seminar.

The Seminar had two parts – three days each, and the topics were “Obstacles in ARV therapy accessibility”, “Human rights, stigma and discrimination”, “Inequality in the health system”, “What is advocacy, and why is it needed”.

As the end result we got two members – trained according to European standards – who will be able to further rise the capacities on applications of ARV therapy to users in our country.

HIV in South-East Europe II

Working Together For Progress

A three-day conference for delegations from all over the South-East Europe was held in Istanbul, in May 2009. The delegates were advocates for the rights of the patients, nurses, doctors and other key figures – who joined the international HIV specialists and representatives of the pharmaceutical industry for research of cultural, economic and structural obstacles for a successful response to HIV considering the conditions in the region. The conference was organized by HIVTRI, with the support of the pharmacy industry, private foundations, the European Union, and individual donors.

Nenad Petković from Q-Club was one of the trainers on the conference.

http://www.hivtri.com/istanbul_09/index.html

Free Tickets for the BITEF Theatre

The BITEF theatre is avant-garde theatre, located in the reconstructed area of the evangelistic church in the very heart of Dorcol and Belgrade.

Since its foundation in 1989, the idea of BITEF has been to broaden the influence of BITEF festival, uncovering of new theater tendencies in our environment, and to give the stage to artists who tread outside the traditional borders of the theatre. That is why BITEF has rightly earned the name of the bravest theatre in the city. It is the stage for the explorer-artists, theater of experiments, theatre that creates culture without the need to hide behind the dominant cultural models and as such, it is open for various genres. The BITEF theatre is here to maintain the BITEF festival spirit during the theatre season in Belgrade.

In cooperation with Q-Club, BITEF theatre has provided for PLHIV a certain amount of free shows every month. This is the first step of how BITEF shows its social responsibility, and provides for higher social support for people living with HIV/AIDS.

If you are interested to see a certain show from the BITEF repertoire, you can contact us, in the Q-Club by phone, e-mail, or come directly to our offices.

You can see the repertoire of the BITEF theatre on www.bitef.rs/teatar.