News

Volunteers from Veliko Tarnovo installed a huge flag made by the method "patchwork" depicted with red ribbon and size 8/12 meters from Stambolov bridge as a sign of solidarity with those affected by HIV / AIDS.

With this initiative, the campaign organized by Center for Interethnic Dialogue and Tolerance "Amalipe", Regional health inspectorate - Veliko Turnovo, Veliko Tarnovo Municipality and Fashion design high school on the occasion of World AIDS Candlelight Memorial Day, is over.
For three weeks, around 20 volunteers and students from several schools in the city with the help of experts from RHI, took shifts in sewing together pieces of fabric into a flag, which consists of old rags.

"The symbolism of the individual pieces sewn together is not randomly chosen, because we want to show that more people united together, can achieve much more. Idea of ​​our work is not different organizations to divide and everyone to do something by piece, but to do something together to reach out a larger number of people." said Momchil Baev, coordinator of the health program at "Amalipe".

The Campaign this year includes more educational meetings in schools on sexual and reproductive health, including sexually transmitted infections and HIV. A comprehensive approach to the issue is very useful for everyone, but especially for young people.
 Georgi Georgiev of Humanitarian School “St. Cyril and St. Methodious” is a volunteer for a long time. He expressed his position on volunteerism as follows:
"We must learn to be empathetic to people's problems and in particular to those who have HIV / AIDS. For our activities we do not receive remuneration but happiness in the eyes of people when we help them is reward enough and reward for us as volunteers. And this work must go on and more people to engage in it.", Georgi said.

With this initiative, young people made an appeal for the inclusion of mandatory health education in schools, including sexual and reproductive health, and expressed sympathy for those affected by HIV / AIDS.
World AIDS Candlelight Memorial Day is commemorated every year on the third Sunday of May. Globally, on this day hundreds of thousands of people of over 1200 organizations in 115 countries participate in the largest and oldest event associated with HIV / AIDS.
For the first time this day is commemorated on May 2^nd, 1983 in San Francisco and New York, when there was still little known about the disease, and officially registered cases of AIDS were only several thousand.
In Bulgaria, the day is commemorated since 1992.
International campaign slogan this year is "Promoting Health and Dignity Together".

 
In the Republic of Bulgaria by 16.05.2012, there were a total of 1532 registered persons with HIV infection. Since the beginning of 2012 newly registered HIV-positive are 59 of whom 43 men and 16 women. Of them 50% are under the age of 29 years.
This year we again see a worrying trend - more than half of newly registered cases of HIV are young people, of which 44% were 18 to 29 years, 10% are under 18 years. Data shows that 37% of all newly infected individuals are intravenous drug users.