SWAN hosts a webinar on the changing funding landscape for sex worker-led organisations in CEECA In recent years, global developments and changes in donor funding patterns have been creating a crisis in funding for many sex worker-led organisations, particularly those in the CEECA region. On Febuary 28, SWAN hosted a webinar addressing the complex funding […]
Since Global Fund left Bulgaria few years ago, majority of services for sex workers were shut down, and the one existing in HESED was struggling to keep the bare minimum on voluntary basis. This challenging environment for services and the lack of adequate support also affects the level of community mobilisation and participation. So, to date, there is no organised sex worker-led group in the country.
In the first day, the participants discussed the last year’s Global Fund activities and shared their experiences around the challenges they faced as well as the strategies they used to overcome any issues. Second day of the meeting was dedicated to the process of country transitioning and sustainability of rights-based community-led sex work programming, level of inclusion of sex workers in countries transition planning and processes.
“At one point in my life I found myself in a challenging economic environment in Russia, and I had a really difficult period of time,” says Irina Maslova, a women human rights defender in Russia. “I know what sex work is from the inside, and I know its different aspects very well.”
The training, organised with the support of UNFPA and RCNF, was facilitated by ICRSE representatives Luca Stevenson and Anastacia Ryan and by SWAN Programme Officer Roxana Vasi.
The topics of the training were community empowerment, sex work and the laws, violence, sex worker-led community services, condom programming, community-led clinical services, programme management, and organisational capacity building.