UNOPA has organised the start-up Conference dedicated to a new project for PLWHA's discrimination
24 February 2008
During February 22nd and 23rd the National Union of Organizations of People Infected / Affected by HIV/AIDS (UNOPA) was the host for the launch conference of a new project aimed to fight against the discrimination.
This new initiative, called "My rights depend on US- National initiative to reduce the discrimination of HIV/AIDS affected people in a European Romania ", will be carried out during December 2007 and October 2008, being the result of the partnership established between UNOPA, CENTRAS and Pestalozzi Foundation.
The project, financed by the European Union, has as a purpose the strengthening the advocacy role that the NGOs may have in observing and protecting the human rights, in ensuring the information access, especially for HIV/AIDS affected people (People Living With HIV/AIDS= PLWHA, meaning people who live with HIV/AIDS).
The UNOPA member associations could act as a watch-dog to the observance of PLWHA's rights, especially to the observance of equal opportunities and treatment. Moreover, they will be the beneficiaries of some assistance and support activities in order to develop a model of monitoring the observance of PLWHA's rights, associated to an advocacy strategy that is more seen as a way to respond to the violation of these people's legal rights.
The three partners of this project chose as a target group a number of 22 PLWHA associations from Bucharest and other 16 counties that are most affected by this issue (Botosani, Buzau, Vaslui, Suceava, Neamt, Bacau, Galati, Constanta, Giurgiu, Dolj, Dambovita, Prahova, Caras Severin, Sibiu, Mures, Hunedoara).The named associations have as direct beneficiaries over 1.200 PLWHA, out of which more than 1.000 are youngsters.
Many of the organizations involved in this project are also implementers of some of the Round 6th projects and activities.
The most representative planned activities are the followings:
- Training and expertise transfer to the PLWHA associations, technical assistance and the support are being provided by Pestalozzi Foundation and CENTRAS;
- The quarterly monitoring of PLWHA's rights observance in Romania, which is made by the PLWA associations and that will be materialized in monitoring reports.
The results of this interesting and noble project will be made of quarterly reports that the UNOPA and its partners intend to publish, submitting them to the attention of the public and authorities.
For further information on this project and UNOPA's activity, access the http://www.unopa.ro/!
