LEAHN Co-ordinator Aleksandr Zelitchenko co-facilitated a workshop in Chinasau, Moldova in April 2014 for participants from law enforcement agencies and civil society organizations. The workshop was titled:
Enhancing Partnerships between Law Enforcement and Civil Society Organizations in the context of Drug Use and HIV: Sensitization Workshop
The workshops were guided by three main objectives as follows:
1) To sensitise law enforcement officials about harm reduction services in the context of HIV and how law enforcement practices can influence (positively or negatively), the access of people who use drugs to harm reduction services;
2) To build capacity of the civil society organizations (CSOs) to advocate with law enforcement agents (LEAs) to ensure greater access of people who used drugs to harm reduction services;
3) To create a space for LEAs and CSOs to share respective positions, concerns and ideas for enhancing future collaboration.
Participants – 30 participants – from them: 16 participants – the law enforcement officials from Moldova, including 8 representatives of penitentiary system and 8 police officers; 3 medical doctors – representatives of the Republican Dependency Treatment Center; and 11 – representatives from HIV-servicing CSOs, working with IDUs and other risk-behavior groups of population on the country level.
Read the full report and the results of participant feedback on the workshop
Recommendations, based on the lessons learned:
1. To select “advanced” candidates for Training of Trainers (ToT) training for police officers and penitentiary service personnel so they can deliver high quality field training sessions;
2. To develop instructions for law enforcement personnel on improvement of HIV prevention at work with vulnerable groups of population, similar to the joint instruction issued in January 2014 by the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the State Penitentiary Service, and the State Drug Control Service of Kyrgyz Republic. To conduct clusters of field trainings to study the above document, and incorporate the instruction into the curriculum of continuous professional education for law enforcement personnel.
3. To initiate drafting of a training course on HIV prevention at work with vulnerable groups of population for Police Academy of Moldova. To form a working group of course authors involving law enforcement representatives, Police Academy teachers, medical doctors, HIV and drug-service CSOs, and representatives of vulnerable groups – drug users and people leaving with HIV.
4. To initiate fundraising process to finance a study tour for the course authoring working group participants (see recommendation #3) to the Kyrgyz Police Academy (Bishkek), that started to teach a similar course since 2004.
Meet the LEAHN Country Focal Point for Moldova – Lieutenant Colonel Svetlana Doltu
