Program «Comprehensive prevention of HIV/AIDS and other socially significant diseases among women from vulnerable groups»
The programme «Prevention of HIV/AIDS and Violence against Female Sex Workers» started in 2001 by an initiative of the Fund Humanitarian Action and is carried out on the mobile unit ‘Minibus’.
Program coordinator: Anna Ivanova.
Programme Goal:
Providing complex medical, psychological and social assistance to female sex workers. This includes working for the prevention of HIV/AIDS and other socially significant diseases. Additionally, this involves warning them about violence, human trafficking and other forms of discrimination.
Target groups:
- Female sex workers, their partners, friends and family.
- Injecting Drug Users and HIV-positive women, especially those involved in sex work.
- Women Living with HIV/AIDS.
Methods of work: 
- Mobile outreach work.
- Informing our clients of disease prevention methods and distributing printed materials about the prevention of HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis and other sexually transmitted diseases.
- Needle exchange program: the clients trade in their used syringes for new, sterilized injection materials (needles, alcohol pads, water for injections) and barrier contraceptives.
- Medical, legal, psychological and social counselling.
- Taking blood for HIV, Hepatitis B and C, and Syphilis testing, along with mandatory counselling before and after.
- Providing social assistance and access to services in State Healthcare Institutions and Social Services Institutions.
- Referrals for consultations with trusted doctors (those specialising in infectious diseases, substance abuse, STDs, dermatology, obstetricts and gynecology) in Prevention and Treatment Facilities.
- Encouraging sex workers to become ‘peer educators’ and to actively partcipate in the program.
Projects:
