CHIFFRES
Mortality infant: 14‰
Life expectancy at birth: 73
HDI : not known
Actual GDP/inhabitant ($) : not known
Beneficiaries : directly: 568 ; indirectly: 1,704
Staff : local: 7 ; expatriate: 1
Sources of funding : French Foreign Ministry, MdM
Budget 2005 : 232,418 euros
Veza support : 45,673 euros
The union of Serbia and Montenegro is politically unstable because of the uncertainties over the status of the neighbouring regions - Bosnia-Herzegovina and Montenegro - and of certain Serbian regions such as Voivodine and Kosovo.
Following the conflicts and socio-economic upsets which shook this region in the 1990s and the clear absence of significant international cooperation, Serbia and Montenegro is also experiencing economic difficulties. The provision of healthcare has clearly deteriorated and the HIV epidemic is growing, especially amongst injectable drug users, although it is not possible to obtain clear information on the epidemiological level.
Harm Reduction
Belgrade
Activities :
MdM's work amongst intravenous drug users has several aspects:
- street work amongst drug users via a mobile unit; this aspect of the work involves exchange of sterile equipment and spreading prevention messages aimed at drug users, near where they live while respecting their way of life (street work by peers and professionals);
- setting up a drop-in centre for intravenous drug users;
- raising awareness about the health risks linked to drug use and prevention activities;
- training those working with drug users.
Outlook:
Support the local organisation VEZA as part of the transfer of the needle exchange programme which began in 2005. Set up a methadone programme.
INTERVIEW
Interview with Sasa Markovic, nurse, previously outreach worker, nowadays director of Veza – 17/11/2006
- Since when does the association Veza exist? What is its history in Serbia?
Veza is born in May 2005 and was created by the local Médecins du Monde team, in order to be able to handover the Harm Reduction programme started since summer 2002 in Belgrade. Most of us are present from the beginning, so we became familiar together with Harm Reduction. We built the project of Veza step by step, because none of us was really accustomed to functioning of an NGO. Veza works in a field of activities very new in Serbia, and we have the chance to benefit of the image of MdM as being the previous NGO managing the programme: the institutions, the other NGOs, local or international, trust us and recognize our competence unique in Serbia.
- What is the area of activities of your association?
Veza works among drug users’ population, which is at the same time very innovative and very specific. We are in contact with chunk of the population that nobody knows or wants to know. Health workers and other NGOs are very distant from this public and they don’t really wish to become closer. So we have to move step by step, to offer trainings, meetings, in order to make less alarming or to try to de-stigmatize the use of drugs.
- What are your current activities?
We have a mobile unit which goes in different locations of the town six days per week, usually during evening hours. And we have a drop-in centre where we receive the users five days per week between 12h00 to 20h00. We perform exchange of sterile material, we inform the users about less risky practices and we propose small health cares in the drop-in centre. Since about one year, in partnership with a health care centre, we organize screening sessions for HIV and hepatitis B and C in the drop-in centre, several times per month.
- What are your plans for the future?
We hope to continue with the confidence we built until now with the users! We wish also to be able to propose more services, for example as psychological support, and among users coming from the Roma community that we can see in big number, and then to be sure that the drug users have really access to health care as any other Serbian citizen. We hope that the substitution treatments will become more spread and make able a lot of people to be stabilized and to return to a social life.
- And for the end, what means Veza for you?
This programme was for me a huge discovery: I learnt that it was existing different ways to help people, it means by practicing Harm Reduction. I also met a lot of persons that think « differently » and who want to help others, and it personally enriched me a lot. And generally talking, Veza is for me a tool to make the society changes. It’s not only a needle exchange programme, but a way to make change the mentalities, and so the society entirely.
novembre 2006
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