Upcoming Webinar: Human Rights and HIV in the Digital Age: What role for the UN and governments?’
This February we are co-hosting a webinar alongside the Graduate Institute and UNDP. It will be an opportunity for policymakers, UN entities, academics, civil society and other stakeholders to discuss existing knowledge and experiences that the global health community can draw on to ensure that health and rights are protected in the digital era. Our Digital Rights and Advisory Group will share new findings from our participatory action research study in digital health and human rights of young adults in Kenya, and speakers will discuss the role of the United Nations and governments in driving rights-based use of digital technologies for HIV and SRHR and hear reflections from young people. Keep an eye out on our socials for more information.
Date: 22 February 2022, Time: 13:00 – 14:30 GMT.
Debate on Global Vaccine Access
In January, STOPAIDS supported a backbench business debate on Covid-19 vaccine access, secured by Wendy Chamberlain who also spoke about the debate and the urgent need for a COVID-19 TRIPS waiver in her op-ed in the Independent. Speakers included John McDonnell MP; Harriett Baldwin MP; Navendu Mishra MP; Dr Philippa Whitford MP; Preet Kaur Gill MP; Shailesh Vara MP and others.
Amendment to the Health and Care Bill
The Missing Medicines coalition have been working with Baroness Shami Chakrabarti to table an amendment to the Health and Care Bill to improve access to vaccines and other medicines in pandemics and in normal times, for the NHS and patients around the world. Specifically the amendment seeks to ensures public benefits in exchange for public financing of research and development. It would require the Secretary of State to support public health flexibilities under the TRIPS Agreement and, in the event of a pandemic, domestic and international knowledge-sharing to combat the emergency through a temporary waiver of the TRIPS Agreement.
Recruitment
There is still time to apply!
The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the global movement that evolved out of the Black Lives Matter protests in the summer of 2020 exposed the depth of structural and systemic inequity, racism and intersecting oppression that exists within our societies. In many organisations working in global health and international development, including ours, it sparked urgent individual and organisational reflections on how our actions and structures may have been contributing to inequity and oppression and how we can challenge this. These events coincided with STOPAIDS reviewing and renewing its next four year strategy (2022-2025) and the organisation decided that to mainstream anti-oppression within our organisation we should create an Anti-Oppression Framework to underpin the next strategy.
STOPAIDS are recruiting for a consultant to lead a review, in partnership with the STOPAIDS team, of our draft Anti–Oppression Framework. Please send expressions of interest to our Advocacy Manager Saoirse Fitzpatrick saoirse@stopaids.org.uk by 12pm on February 2nd. You can find our ToR here.
The Unitaid NGO Delegation is looking for a new Key Advisor to support the NGO Delegation of Unitaid.
Key Advisors provide support and advice to the NGO Delegation’s Board Member, Alternate Board Member and Liaison Officer primarily through providing context and/ or historical background to current issues before the Unitaid Board, providing technical input on Unitaid issues and acting on behalf of the Board Member or Alternate Board Member at Unitaid or other meetings and events if requested.
The terms of reference and information on the application process for the Key Advisor role can be foundhere.Please do consider applying and share widely with your networks. Applicants will be assessed on a rolling basis.
The registration is now open for a new and exciting three-week massive open online course (MOOC) covering all aspects of harm reduction from advocacy to practice. It was developed by MdM France in collaboration with INPUD and the LSHTM.
This self-guided course includes videos, peer-reviewed research and quizzes intended to expand and test participant's knowledge on how human rights and public health relate to harm reduction. Experts in the field, including people who use drugs, give best-practice examples of harm reduction, share lived experiences and explore how to effectively advocate for scaling up harm reduction to defend the human rights of people who use drugs. The course is designed for anyone interested in harm reduction and particularly those already working in the field. Government officials involved in formulating or implementing drug policies will also find it very beneficial, as will anyone working in public health. The course is fully accessible for free. Participants can receive a certificate at completion for a fee of 39€.
Avert's big news for 2022 is that their new website ‘Be in the Know’ is launching in April, providing tailored information and resources on HIV and sexual health in an easy-to-use format. Avert are also working on a number of exciting digital projects, including developing a life skills app for low literacy girls in Mozambique, in partnership with VSO. Their Boost app, that supports the ongoing learning and work of community health workers across southern Africa, is being adapted into a more youth-orientated health information and screening tool for health workers in Zimbabwe, in partnership with OPHID. Avert are also looking forward to starting work with Praekelt in South Africa on a new digital “one stop shop” for young people to access sexual health information, funded by Elton John AIDS Foundation. They have recruited 3 new board members, and a new staff member based in South Africa.
Salamander Trust is part of the CUSP Community for Understanding Scale Up of gendered social norms change programmes. In December, they launched their latest publication. This document questions the effectiveness of current paradigms for scale up of gendered social norms change programmes (such as Stepping Stones) and invites the reader to explore what feminist scaling might look like in practice. Entitled “Enhancing Social Norms Programs: An Invitation to Rethink ‘Scaling Up’ from a Feminist Perspective”, it can be accessed here.
Salamander Trust is currently working with 20 colleagues around the world to develop a Toolkit by and for women living with HIV on our SRHR. This Toolkit, commissioned by WHO will have a parallel Toolkit designed for healthcare workers about the SRHR of women living with HIV. For more information, please see here.
Salamander Trust are also delighted that Angelina Namiba has kindly agreed to join their Board of Trustees.
National HIV Testing Week is HIV Prevention England's flagship annual event which starts on Monday 7 February 2022.
National HIV Testing Week is a campaign to promote regular testing among the most affected population groups in England. This helps to reduce the number of people living with undiagnosed HIV and those diagnosed late.
The campaign continues last year’s success and features celebrities and influencers promoting ‘Give HIV the finger: a finger-prick test is all it takes’.
HIV Prevention England are inviting organisations to participate by running campaign activities, events and promoting HIV testing and prevention services with their support. To find out more about how you can support this exciting event download and read the National HIV Testing Week 2022 campaign briefing.
NAM aidsmap has recently published new information videos on HIV transmission, window periods for HIV testing, feeding your baby, and life expectancy for people with HIV. You can watch all of the videos on aidsmap.com. Watch videos here.
NAM aidsmap has also updated its pages on COVID-19, people living with HIV and COVID-19 vaccines to ensure they include the most up-to-date information from recent studies. This includes information in people with HIV being are at higher risk of COVID-19; why people with HIV may have worse COVID-19 outcomes; studies of the current COVID-19 vaccines on people living with HIV; and third vaccine doses and booster doses. Read morehere and here.
Harm Reduction International released an update to the key data in their flagship publication, the Global State of Harm Reduction.
Thank you for reading the latest news from STOPAIDS and members. Our next newsletter will be circulated in April 2022. If you do not wish to continue receiving these emails, you can unsubscribe below.
