Starting from January 2019, AFEW International began to implement the project St. Petersburg and Bishkek – Key Populations and HIV & TB Prevention Priorities funded through the Aidsfonds under the PITCH. The project covers key populations and HIV and tuberculosis prevention priorities in St. Petersburg, Russia and Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.
PITCH is a strategic partnership between Aidsfonds and the Frontline AIDS (former International HIV/AIDS Alliance) working with those most affected by HIV: adolescent girls and young women, msm, people who use drugs, prisoners and sex workers. The program aims to enable these groups to transform (inter)national HIV responses by strengthening their advocacy skills and capacities and promoting the innovative evidence-informed practice. This will contribute to cities in the Russian Federation and Eastern Europe and Central Asia (EECA) joining the fast-track city initiative and building political support for an HIV/AIDS response focused on key populations.
“Within this project, we are focusing on working with St. Petersburg and Bishkek and municipal level governments on HIV geographically-focused responses,” says AFEW International’s program manager Daria Alexeeva. “In this way, we are continuing our work we stared under the Fast-track Cities project in partnership with Alliance for Public Health where we are developing models of sustainable city responses to HIV and TB in key population in EECA that significantly contribute to achieving 90-90-90 HIV/TB targets for key populations.”
The project St. Petersburg and Bishkek – Key Populations and HIV & TB Prevention Priorities will work on several strategies: community based participatory research to reveal the most acute needs of the key populations, changing attitude of the decision maker towards key groups, involving key groups into the advocacy process, and experience exchange between the three countries, negotiations with the cities authorities on signing Paris Declaration and Zero TB Declaration.
