INPUD Activities Report Juli 2007 - Januari 2008

In compliance with INPUD-IHRA agreement to cooperate and work on CREATING A CONDUCIVE INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENT FOR HARM REDUCTION (signed on August, 28^th 2007), Stijn Goossens – as International Executive Director & Board Member of INPUD – elected and contractual representative of INPUD presents a Report on INPUD Activities.

The Activities Report comprises the 1^st four months report on INPUD activities for September'07 – December'07, as requested by the Agreement, the report for July'07-August'07, as well as the report for January'08.

INPUD ACTIVITIES REPORT

Administrative:

• INPUD court registration - July, 26^th 2007;

• Court decision on and a subsequent publication (required by the local legislation) of an amendment to the INPUD court registration, appointing the final members of the temporary INPUD Board. The new INPUD Board with a mandate of two years is to be voted at the INPUD GA that is to be hold in May, during the IHRA ICRDRH in Barcelona;

• Organize an office;

• Providing a land telephone-line and number and an Internet connection in the INPUD office;

• Calculate the annual expenditures after IHRA's grant, introducing the estimates to the INPUD board, vote and adopt the INPUD budget;

• INPUD Bank Account

• Contract with the Social Secretariat HDP for the INPUD staff payment: currently 1 full-time paid employee – Stijn Goossens;

• Providing one volunteered unpaid INPUD Administration office assistant: Milena Naydenova, ex-CEO of Hope-Sofia, current independent IHRD consultant;

• Contract with accountant for INPUD financial administration

• Intermediate Financial Report INPUD (appointed above and attached in the excel file);

• INPUD membership administration: – regularly updated database of the INPUD members and the INPUD supporting members – the categories and the criteria for INPUD membership were voted by the INPUD founding members at the II^nd DU Congress in Warsaw. Currently 109 organizations and individuals have been applied and have been voted by the Board as INPUD members and 20 organizations and individuals have been applied and have been voted by the Board as INPUD supporting members;

• Administration, accounting, banking for INPUD Asia OSI-grant for the GOA conferences;

• Regular consultations with the INPUD accountant about details of the local accounting and banking regulations and procedures;

INPUD members personal meetings:

• Organize and chair the INPUD-Europe meeting in Sofia (29/09/2007) (report);

• Organize - invite, moderate, report on - the first N-American INPUD meeting (08/12/2007) (report);

• Organize – schedule, chair and report on the monthly online INPUD Board meetings;

EU Civil Society Forum on Drugs (link to the report):

• Application for EU Civil Society Forum on Drugs (August 17);

• Advocacy actions aiming at the inclusion of the (initially excluded) DU in the EU Forum that met broad International support and resulted in EHRN offering one of their slots for the Forum to INPUD and a consequent official invitation for INPUD by the EC to be part of the EU forum in 2008-2009;

• Milena Naydenova attended the EU 2-day Forum On Drugs on behalf of INPUD Europe (13-14/12/2007);

• INPUD Analysis and Report on the Forum emailed to the participants of the Forum, to INPUD partners and ally, published on INPUD web site (08/01/2008);

UNGASS Regional Consultations Beyond 2008:

• Fredy (Indonesia, INPUD Board member) attended the South East and East Asia and the Pacific Consultations that were held in Macau S.A.R. on 31^st October-1^st November 2007;

• Anan Pun (Nepal, INPUD chairman) attended the South Asia Consultations that were held in Dhaka, Bangladesh on 7-9 January 2008;

• Stijn Goossens (Belgium, INPUD International Director and Board member) attended the Western Europe Consultation that were held in Budapest, Hungary on 24-25 January 2008;

• Guy Pierre (Canada, INPUD Board member) attended the North America Consultations that were held in Vancouver, British Columbia on 4-5 February 2008;

UN Civil Society Task Force:

• January 2008 - the selection procedure: INPUD board nominated 3 INPUD activists for the final selection procedure. Stijn Goossens was chosen by International Council of AIDS Service Organizations (ICASO) to represent the people who use drugs in the Task Force. The first meeting of the working group took place 26-27 February 2008; 3 more meetings and the High-Level meeting will take place over the period April-March 2008

• INPUD applied for accreditation for the UN High Level Meeting on AIDS in New York June 10-11 2008

CND meeting in Vienna

- Stijn Goossens was invited to attend the CND meeting in Vienna in the IHRA delegation

International conferences, seminars, meetings:

IDPC/IHRA seminar on Advocacy guide (17-19 September, Lisbon, Portugal):

• Stijn Goossens attended the seminar on behalf of INPUD;

Correlation Network European Conference (27 - 29 September, Sofia, Bulgaria)(link to the site):

• 19 International DUA, members of INPUD attended;

• On request of Correlation Network Milena Naydenova and Stijn Goossens worked on and fully organized (incl. methadone, needle-exchange, etc.) the participation of the European INPUD activists in the Correlation Conference;

• Stijn Goossens was a member of the Executive Program Committee for the Correlation Conference in Sofia;

• INPUD members were speakers and presenters in the opening and the closing plenaries, in a number of panels, panel discussions, workshops, etc.;

• European INPUD meeting took place after the conference (link to the report).

AIDS Conferences:

• INPUD-Asia was founded at the 8th ICAAP (International Conference on AIDS for the Asian Pacific) in Colombo (August 2007)

• INPUD Asia held a next meeting during the HIV/AIDS consultation in GOA and wrote the GOA-Declaration. INPUD Asia got IHRD funding for scholarships, meeting organization and trainings

• The AIDS Conference in Mexico – possible IHRD co-funding for INPUD presence in the Global Village. Stijn Goossens and Joe Mahase (ICASO) currently work on organizing the event, budget, program, schedule,

DPA International Drug Policy Reform Conference in New Orleans, USA ( 5 - 9 December):

• Scholarship for Stijn Goossens by Drug Policy Alliance and IHRD.

• INPUD members Becky Brooks, Yvonne Sibuea, Louis Jones and Stijn Goossens – presented on Drug User Organizing and INPUD in the session Bridging the gap - the DU organizing;

• INPUD members Dimitri Mugianis and Alan Clear participated as speakers in the Closing Plenary of the IDPR Conference

• Stijn Goossens and Becky Brooks organized the 1^st N-America INPUD meeting on Saturday December 8; More or less 50 people attended the meeting which was opened by Ethan Nadellman from DPA. Around 30 Activists applied for INPUD membership

19^th IHRA International Harm Reduction Conference in Barcelona:

• Initial personal contacts with local DU organizations, DU Activists, service providing programs, Stijn Goossens (July 10-12 2007);

• Stijn Goossens – member of the Executive Program Committee;

• Stijn Goossens – participant in the Program Marathon in Barcelona (11-14/12/2008);

• INPUD members Stijn Goossens, Howard Lotsof, Jose Carbonell and Xatxa Rossello are members of the Medical Committee;

• Developing an initial draft of guidelines for organizing events with participation of International DU Activists - (initial draft will be published soon on INPUD website);

Fundraising:

• Conversations with IHRD – co-finance the Global Village session at Mexico AIDS Conference;

• Initial Conversations with IHRD to co-finance the INPUD Congress

• Initial Conversations with Grup Igia to co-finance the INPUD Congress

• Initial Conversations with Correlation Network to partner for Correlation II project;

• Initial Conversations with Reckitt Benckiser to partner for possible trainings

• Initial Conversations with BF /Copenhagen to partner for IDUD'2008.

• Initial Conversations with Kasia Malinowska to partner with INPUD Europe for EU call

• Initial Conversations with Kasia Malinowska to partner with INPUD South-America

Calls for INPUD

• Call for applications to represent people injecting drugs in Asia on the HAARP Advisory Board

• Request For Data (Reference Group to the UN on HIV and IDU)

• Consulting the network about our participation in regional UNGASS reviews

• Call to prepare and submit abstracts for the 19th IHRC in Barcelona ( 11-15 May 2008)

• Second call for abstracts for the 2008 International Harm Reduction Conference

• Deadline for submitting abstracts for ‘Harm Reduction 2008’ is approaching

• Call for European INPUD: Peers/Scientists

• Call for ideas on 2 Users Choice Majors for 19th IHRC

• Call for idea's on 2 Users Choice major sessions in Russian

• Next round for 2 Users Choice sessions @ 19th IHRC in Barcelona

• Call to vote on 2 Users Choice majors for the 19th IHRC in Barcelona

• Call for INPUD expert IDU and HIV/HCV treatment

INPUD Articles posted on website:

• 62 INPUD articles where posted during the period August 2007 – January 2008

INPUD Newsletters:

• 11 INPUD newsletters where send out during the period August 2007-January 2008

Other related issues:

Research:

• Online research on the state of DU activism and the DU organizations world-wide – made by INPUD (Stijn Goossens), ordered and owed by Correlation Network;

• Access to ARV therapy for (former and current) injecting drug users in CEE – made by INPUD (Milena Naydenova), ordered and owed by EHRN;

Trainings, Seminars:

• ARV4IDU Seminar - organized by EATG-EHRN in Vilnius, Lithuania on November 24 – 25, 2007. Milena Naydenova presented and moderated a workshop on Community Organizing;

• Initial conversations with Group Igia (Barcelona) for two one-day training work-shops on advocacy and bringing the service providers closer to the DU community. The training is planned for the Spanish service providers that will attend the IHRA's IHRC.

IDUD'2007 (November 1^st)

INPUD members organized IDUD events around the world (Canada, Macedonia, Lithuania, Australia, Belgium, etc);

A sign-on letter for EECACC:

• INPUD Action Alert: Please sign-on to and spread the EECAAC letter

IN RUSSIAN: INPUD Action Alert

INPUD and allies released a sign-on letter for EECACC (12/01/2008) with the request that EECAAC conference organizers should make provisions so that individuals who receive treatment with methadone or buprenorphine may travel to Russia with their medication or access treatment at or near the conference site, in order to attend the forum in a legal, safe, comfortable and respected manner. The voices of many people directly affected by HIV may be silenced because of Russia’s ban on methadone and buprenorphine for drug dependency treatment.

Local activities:

INPUD public response to a TV report on a puncture accident with HIV infected syringe in the area of Antwerp Hospital (October 2007):

• An opened letter to more than 150 media and important local institutions;

• INPUD article about the malicious accusations towards the local IV users;

• Drawing broad media and public attention on the case;

• Articles in local newspapers and online debates;

• A public debate with local politicians, decision-makers, officials, NGO representatives on the local television;

Colloquium on DU organizing, 30 November 2007, Antwerp, Belgium:

• INPUD presentation;

• Participation in panel discussion;

IDUD'2007 (November 1^st):

• Organization of IDUD'2007 in Antwerp, Belgium;

• Article “Stop the black-sheeping of DU”on INPUD web site;

• Posters/flyers for the event;

• November 1^st, Antwerpen: outdoor advocacy action under the slogan “Stop Blacksheeping Us” - speeches, interviews for two (a national and a local Antwerp's) TV channels, few radio and newspaper interviews, online articles about the event;

Panel debate on national television:

Stijn Goossens and prof. Luc Beaucourt pro/against drug consumption rooms (06/02/2008).