News

 On the 16^th  and 17^th of December at "Mattie," the NPC held its Annual Meeting with NGOs working on the HIV prevention among young people, which is the Seventh Component of the Program "Prevention and Control of HIV / AIDS " of the Ministry of Health. The meeting was attended by the representatives of NGOs working on the Program. The main objective of the meeting was to clarify the needs and to share the experiences and knowledge among the coordinators and trainers of the 18 NGO sub-recipients, under the Seventh Component.

 The meeting initiated with the opening address by Tonka Varleva M. D., Director of the program "Prevention and Control of HIV / AIDS." She also shared the results acquired for the year 2012 for the program "Prevention and Control of HIV / AIDS." Anina Chileva, a long time consultant on the Seventh Component presented the activities that took place within the Component for 2012. Chileva exposed to the attendees the major campaigns in the cities, photos of outreach, trainings, and exchange of experiences. Most cities have made major campaigns; including parades, games, festivals, and in particular the distribution of condoms. During the campaign, many people were targeted and educational materials and condoms were easily distributed. Plamen Ivanov, with the Unit “Monitoring and evaluation,” presented statistical data from the work done up to date, which indicated that the set up of the program has distributed  around 220,287 condoms up to date. This sets a positive starting point to reach the target goal in placed of distributing 692,000 condoms by 2014. This means that over the next two years there is a need to increase the number of campaign activities and to distribute condoms at a steady rate to reach the targeted goal. The activities of the clubs dealing with the institutions working with children and the youth have shown significant progress. By 2014 the set goal was to target 629 people, however, only by the middle of 2012, 614 people in institutions had been targeted; reflecting a positive and steady outcome.

Some issues present at the moment with the activities run by the clubs – but that we want to eliminate- include: problems with communication between volunteers, problems with the failure to complete tasks, problems with motivation, and lack of discipline. The trainers pointed out these problems to the lack of funds and to the lack of more internal training.

 The workshop ended with a social cocktail and award ceremony. Center "Amalipe" was awarded a diploma for its achievement in the field of sexual and reproductive health education through the education of vulnerable young people trained by their peers." Dr. Tonka Varleva awarded a diploma to Momchil Baev, who received the award on behalf of the Centre "Amalipe." Mr. Baev called for the collaboration of the Ministry of Health and the "Prevention and Control of HIV / AIDS" with NGOs to continue working with the same success in the coming years.