The leading organization in the International Indoor Sex Workers Outreach Project is Autres Regards (France). Besides HESED the partners are: Médecins du Monde, France, Amnesty for Women, Germany, Comitato per i Diritti Civili delle Prostitute Onlus, Italy, and Agência Piaget para o Desenvolvimento, Portugal.

The starting date of the project is January 23, 2009 and its duration is 24 months.

The Bulgarian part of the project activities includes continuation of the outreach work among indoor sex workers as well as the work of the Medical Mobile unit. The new activity is launch of a consultation work via the Internet. This will be a novelty approach in Bulgaria, where telephone and the Internet are the most used means of selling sex services.

On December 1, the International Day against AIDS- HESED representatives took part in a National Partnership Meeting, organized by the Bulgarian Ministry of Health.

HESED was presented at the meeting with an award for its work with sex workers in Bulgaria in the field of HIV/AIDS prevention. The director of HESED, Dr Elena Kabakchieva was also honored for her expert work in AIDS-prevention area.

In the year 2009 starts the third phase of National Program of Prevention and Control of HIV/AIDS in Bulgaria, funded by GFATM. This phase will last 6 years.

For more information:

Tsvetelina Oreshkova, HESED, t.oreshkova@hesed.bg