AFEW International is taking part in 25th Harm Reduction International Conference that will take place in Montréal, Canada next week. AFEW’s executive director Anke van Dam and program director Janine Wildschut will take part in the side event on harm reduction.
The side event ‘Future Proofing Harm Reduction’ is supported by the Dutch Funded Harm Reduction Programs – Bridging the Gaps, PITCH and the Alliance Integrated Harm Reduction Programme (AIHRP). These three alliances are represented by Aidsfonds, International HIV/AIDS Alliance, International Network of People Who Use Drugs, AFEW International, and the Mainline Foundation. The side event will take place on Monday, 15th May, 2-3.30 pm at Mansfield II, Entry hall, Centre Mont-Royal.
AFEW will be represented by the talk by AFEW International’s program director Janine Wildschut with the talk ‘Shrinking space for civil society in the EECA region’ and AFEW Kyrgyzstan’s director Natalya Shumskaya who will talk about women who use drugs in Kyrgyzstan. More detailed program of the side event can be found here.
Harm reduction goes much further than HIV prevention, and contributes significantly to the quality of life of people who use drugs and to the realization of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). This side event, moderated by the Dutch Ambassador for Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights and HIV/AIDS Lambert Grijns, will share examples from the variety of grassroots harm reduction projects currently funded by the Netherlands. Current challenges in harm reduction funding beyond HIV and framing programmes within the context of the SDGs will be discussed.
The theme of this year’s Harm Reduction International Conference is ‘At the Heart of the Response’, and the programme includes presentations, panels, workshops and dialogue space sessions on innovative harm reduction services, new or ground-breaking research, effective or successful advocacy campaigns and key policy discussions or debates.
