Countries | POLAND |
Duration | 03.2023 – 02.2024 |
Donor | VIIV HEALTHCARE (Gipa Accelerator Fund) |
Target Group | Ukrainians living with HIV in Poland |
The project responds to the lack of adequate health system response and engagement of the new and still rising group of PLHIV in Poland– refugees flying from Ukraine due to the war. Its objective is to increase the equal and full participation of PLHIV refugees from Ukraine in polish HIV programming, leading to strengthened effective, inclusive and responsive programmes and policies made with the full participation of all PLHIV Ukrainian refugees living in Poland. To achieve this change, we plan to recruit 20 Ukrainian PLHIV refugees willing to become community leaders and self-advocates, provide them with comprehensive trainings covering the essential knowledge and skills and offer them the opportunity to design and implement small-scale initiatives targeted t their communities with the support of experienced mentors.
Project goal
The project goal is to strengthen effective, inclusive and responsive programmes and policies made with the full participation of all PLHIV Ukrainian refugees living in Poland.
Project objective
The project objective is to increase the equal and full participation of PLHIV refugees from Ukraine in polish HIV programming.
Activity 1. Recruitment
Project participants will be 20 Ukrainian PLHIV refugees living in Poland and willing to engage in their community’s actions, becoming its leaders and self-advocates. The recruitment information will be distributed among the clients of the Help Now hub Poland initiative (up to date, more than 10 000 clients), providing information on HIV treatment and social services for Ukrainian refugees living with HIV.
Activity 2. Training sessions and networking
We plan three in-person weekend sessions (6 days altogether) combined with three one-day remote trainings on the following topics:
– knowledge about how NGOs work, such as aspects of funding, programme design, planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation
– community support modes, support skills development and approaches to support treatment literacy
– information about health, HIV, antiretroviral treatment and mental health
– stigma and discrimination related to HIV, migrant status and intersectionality
– understanding of government health systems
– advocacy and campaigning.
Activity 3. Mentoring and small scale initiatives implementation
Starting from the fourth month of the training, each project participant will work with an experienced mentor from the community. The mentor’s task will be to support the individual development of participants, strengthen their engagement in the community and support the planning and implementation of the small scale initiatives, enabling each participant to exercise knowledge and skills gained during trainings in practice. The up to three-month-long initiatives will be implemented in cooperation with community-based organizations. Their topics, referring to the GIPA principles, will be chosen by participants and will refer to the Policy-making process, Leadership and support, group networking and sharing, Advocacy, Treatment roll-out and preparedness or Campaigns and public speaking. Each participant will receive up to 400 GBP to cover their small initiative costs. As a result, all the participants will strengthen their self-esteem and links with the PLHIV community, allowing them to develop their competencies, and foster their engagement in community led-activities, leading to greater involvement of Ukrainian refugees living with HIV in HIV response in Poland. Additionally, we assume that each small scale initiative will reach at least 50 Ukrainian refugees living with HIV, expanding the number of project beneficiaries to at least 1 000 people.
Activity 4. Summary of the activities and evaluation
At the end of the project, all participants will meet for a two-day summary session. This will be used to summarize the project’s achievements at individual and project levels, discuss further activities and related support, and evaluate the scope of obtained results.
