Aksion Plus is engaged in advocacy and public awareness rising on AIDS prevention in Albania. It supports people living with HIV/AIDS, drug users and other vulnerable groups to be integrated into the society, and recruits intellectuals, youngsters, doctors, social workers, teachers and others in order to broaden support for new policy initiatives in the area of AIDS/STI prevention and treatment.

Aksion Plus is active in provision of services to people at risk of HIV infection. Although the organization got engaged with sex workers when working with at-risk groups, participation in SWAN network will be for them the first focused approach to the issues of human rights and access to public health services particular to this marginalized group. More

Contact person: Genci Mucollari
E-mail: gencaxionp@albmail.com
Website: www.aksionplus.net

The mission of HESED is to carry out health promotion activities and to stimulate social development of underprivileged groups and communities on the territory of Bulgaria. The main target groups are sex workers, Roma people and men having sex with men.

In 1997, HESED was the first Bulgarian organization to start focusing on problems of sex workers in the country. Outreach work is based on accessibility, anonymity, confidentiality, and professionalism. The members of the team are professional psychologists and social workers. They offer free services such as health education and consultations; dissemination of specially designed educational materials, of condoms and lubricants; referral and accompanying to health and social services; harm reduction, needles and syringes exchange and training of peer educators. More

Contact person: Tsvetelina Oreshkova
E-mail: t.oreshkova@hesed.bg
Website: www.hesed.bg

Bliss without Risk was founded in Prague in 1992, as an answer to the boom in the number of sex workers after the change of regime of 1989. The main aims of the NGO are HIV&STI prevention among female sex workers, providing basic health care (HIV&STI testing, diagnosis and for some infections, treatment), linking sex workers to relevant health services, and providing psychosocial support. In 2005, Bliss without Risk opened its second centre (in Brno), but together with their Prague centre and their Mobile Ambulance, they are able to cover sex workers’ needs at national level.

The NGO is open to experience-sharing, and has developped a mobile unit project for sex workers in Zimbabwe (the unit was funded by the Czech Government). More

Contact person: Hana Malinová
E-mail: rozkos@volny.cz
Website: http://www.rozkosbezrizika.cz/01_htm/100_ENGLISH.htm

 The Hungarian Prostitutes’ Interest Protection Association (HPIPA) was founded in 2000, soon after prostitution became legal in Hungary. The NGO started to work first as an interest representation of women sex workers at disadvantage, and in 2002, homo- and transsexual sex workers joined also the association. HPIPA aims at protecting sex workers’ rights and helping sex workers willing to quit to spend as little time in prostitution as possible. In order to achieve these aims, HPIPA runs a free legal aid service and a 24-hours hot-line, provides assistance and counselling in health and social issues, promotes safer sex, implements training projects for unqualified sex workers and advocates for respect for sex workers’ rights. Recently, HPIPA (with state support and cooperation) started to operate a mobile HIV & STI testing unit. More

Social Bureau Kovcheg was established in 2006 in the Taldykorgan region of Kazakhstan. As a part of the Social Support – a network of NGOs supporting those in need - it has as its main goals reduction of incidence of HIV/AIDS, raising awareness about and provision of services to people with higher risk behavior, such as injecting drug users, former convicts, and sex workers. More

Contact person: Svetlana Saduakasova
Email: fsz@mail.ru

 Weak participation of communities is one of the main problems in curbing the HIV/AIDS epidemics in Central Asia.  Nongovernmental organization Tais Plus was established in 1997 to address that problem.  It was founded upon an initiative and financial support from sex workers.

DIA+LOGS is the first low-threshold drop-in centre in Latvia, created to help and support people living with HIV and AIDS and at-risk groups. It is a contact and support centre for people living with HIV/AIDS and their families.  It provides them information, spiritual, psychological and social welfare support.  In addition to that, it is an information and resource centre for people interested in and working in the HIV/ AIDS sector.

DIA+LOGS is a non-governmental and not-for-profit organisation founded in 2002 as a joint endeavour between the Latvia NGOs AGIHAS (Latvian self support group for people living with HIV/AIDS) and LCG (Latvian Contact Group on Urban, Industrial and Rural Mission). Its Board is comprised of key stakeholders and actors in the HIV/AIDS field in Latvia. More

Contact person: Agita Seja
Email: agita.seja@inbox.lv
Website: www.diacentrs.lv

A Coalition of non-governmental organizations and experts "I Can Live" is the only such organization in Lithuania, active since 2004, that unites non-governmental organizations (6) and specialists (13) interested in effective solutions to drug-dependence and related issues of vulnerable groups as well as in creation of a safe and healthy society. The main goals of the Coalition are to seek that policy-making, decision-making and implementing institutions and persons directly related to vulnerable groups would comprehend the needs of those groups; to reduce stigmatization of and discrimination against vulnerable persons by shaping public opinion; to promote development and funding of the integration and resocialization system for vulnerable groups and mechanisms for their implementation; to seek effective implementation of the principles of harm reduction to the society/people laid down in the national drug control, drug use and HIV/AIDS prevention policy; to increase accessibility of health care, social and other services to vulnerable groups; to develop the capacity of the Coalition members, self-organization of vulnerable groups and active involvement thereof in decision making processes. In pursuing these goals the Coalition organizes monitoring and analysis of adoption and enforcement of legal; provides recommendations and consultations to authorities and other institutions as to how to address dependencies and related issues; carries out research into dependencies and related issues; organizes conferences, educational seminars, discussions and lectures; drafts information materials about dependencies and related issues. More

HOPS is a non-governmental, non-profit and non-partisan organization that started operating as a project supported by The Lindesmith Center and The Open Society Institute Macedonia in 1997. During this period it has successfully implemented programs for reduction of drug related harm, prevention of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted and blood-borne diseases, as well as programs for social reintegration and re-socialization targeting young people and vulnerable groups (drug users and their families and sex workers and their families).  HOPS works closely with various government ministries and agencies, other civil society groups and media and is funded among others by OSI, UNDCP, WHO, UNICEF, UNHCR, the World Bank, OSCE, DFID, and USAID. More

Contact person: Marija Tosheva
Email: marijat@hops.org.mk
Website: www.hops.org.mk

TADA implements a harm reduction program addressed to commercial sex workers in four Polish cities and regions - Szczecin, Gdańsk, Zielona Góra, and Warszawa. Its target groups are male and female sex workers, pimps, and their customers.

TADA promotes health and provides risks prevention and harm reduction services through street outreach, free distribution of leaflets, condoms and lubricants. The organization is active in public education and advocacy on HIV/AIDS/STI issues.  In its programs it collaborates with local government, state institutions, and the European Commission. More

Contact person: Justyna Sobeyko
Email: justynasobejko@poczta.fm
Website: www.tada.pl