“In Mohyliv-Podilsky, there are 27 officially registered HIV-positive people, but we all know that, in fact, their number is much higher. Such factors as economic instability, unemployment growth, increase in drug use and prostitution intensify the critical situation and scale up HIV/AIDS epidemic. Knowing that Ukraine, unfortunately, takes the first place in Europe when it comes to HIV/AIDS epidemic growth, we consider HIV/AIDS prevention critically important for our municipality, and in 2007 we would utilize the MGSDP-developed model of awareness activities for this purpose”, said Lesya Suvalova, Director of the City Centre of Social Services for Family, Children and Youth.

So, the newly created School Network of Mohyliv-Podilsky in cooperation with the City Centre of Social Services and other relevant stakeholders have planned a number of events for 2007 to raise public awareness of critical issues relating to HIV/AIDS. The activities include performing video lectures in the local colleges to identify the local volunteers, train them on HIV/AIDS issues and peer-to-peer approach of transferring the knowledge, organizing a public information campaign through the local media, social advertisements on bill-boards, public festival and other well-targeted actions. After screening the successful thematic video lectures in local colleges, over 50 representatives of the local youth decided to become volunteers.

On 15^th and 16^th May trainings for two groups of volunteers were conducted by MGSDP’s experts. In course of these trainings, young people listened to presentations on HIV/AIDS, ways of its transmission, debated various important issues related with the subject, watched the training video, discussed various attitudes existing in the society towards people living with HIV/AIDS and worked in groups to brainstorm the ways of raising public awareness on the subject among youths to promote the safe behaviour and healthy lifestyle. At the end of trainings, the volunteers expressed their commitment to assist the officials in their effort to prevent HIV/AIDS in the city.  

Trained volunteers received sets of publications, informational materials, CDs and video films on various issues related to HIV/AIDS. This initiative of UNDP/MGSDP was supported by other UN projects and agencies. Special gratitude to UNDP project “Governance on HIV/AIDS” for their invaluable support in developing the contents of training and the informational materials provided for dissemination; to UNICEF for the provided video films “Positive Children”; and to UNAIDS for the brochures and specialised publications on the subject.

According to the arrangement of the School Network, in future the volunteers will conduct similar trainings in the local schools – members of the network – to further disseminate their knowledge. It is planned to evaluate the impact of these joint efforts through conducting a survey to compare the level of current awareness with the changes made due to the conducted activities.

For further details, please contact Mrs. Olena Ursu, UNDP/MGSDP Monitoring and Communications Expert, by tel. 044 280 30 07, 280 37 19, or via e-mail: olena.ursu@undp.org.ua