Research and capacity building

 

Capacity building of NGOs on HIV and drug related issues

 

As a recognition to SPYM’s experience and expertise in the health sector the Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment as well as NACO, Ministry of Health, Govt. of India and United Nations Office on Drugs & Crime (UNODC) has designated SPYM as the Regional Resource and Training Centre for Northern part of India (RRTC-North) to develop the capacity of the service providers of Civil Society Organisations who are working in the area of drug demand reduction & HIV/AIDS.

 

Objective

·        To develop the capacity of the service providers of Civil Society Organisations who are working in the area of drug demand reduction & HIV/AIDS.

 

Activities/Services:

·        Identification of the training needs of NGOs, and the provision of this training

·        Organization of advocacy networks

·        Initiation of the convergence and integration of services for better delivery of services from NGOs and the government

·        Resource mobilization, where Northern Indian NGOs were motivated to link with other organizations for funding purposes

·        Region-by-region assessment of the general vulnerability to drug abuse and HIV/AIDS

·        Promotion of websites in all of its training programs

·        Capacity building (in IT, counseling, documentation, etc.)

·        Exposure visits to various best-practiced projects in Delhi

·        Preparation of training and education materials (like flip charts, resource books, exhibition panels) and translation of this material into regional languages

·        Assessment of training needs among NGOs working in the area of drugs and HIV/AIDS in Northern India. With this information, SPYM develops and the development of training modules for the capacity building of service providers in these NGOs, with support from agencies like NACO, UNAIDS, SACS, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Govt. of India.  

·        The development of a management and accounting module for these NGOs

·        Monitoring the trends of drug abuse and HIV in the Northern region

·        Creation of behaviour communications change materials (a set of 21 exhibition panels, flip charts, guide book on peer education and communication, Resource books on harm reduction for HIV/AIDS prevention among IDUs and HIV/AIDS & preventive options etc.) on drugs, HIV/AIDS and sexual health issues in 16 regional languages for various stakeholders working in the area of HIV/AIDS.

·        Exposure visits to various best-practiced projects in the region

·        Initiation of the convergence and integration of services for better delivery of services from NGOs and the government

 

Achievements

·        SPYM has assessed the training needs of more than 200 Northern Indian NGOs

·        More than 2500 NGO staff of Northern India on issues related to STIs/HIV/AIDS, sex & sexuality, harm reduction etc. (since the beginning, or just in one year)

 

Plan international partnership

 

Objective

·        To assess the awareness and sensitivity to HIV/AIDS related issues amongst Project Unit staff of Plan International, and to provide training to bridge this gap

 

Activities

·        The assessment was carried out through a questionnaire and pre-testing

·        The training was carried out at 19 sites across India.

 

IDU size estimation in Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh

 

Objectives

·        To provide estimates of number of Injecting Drug Users, and the presence of services and interventions in the states of Punjab and Haryana and the Union Territory of Chandigarh.

·        To bring the IDUs identified through this exercise closer to various services through PLI.

 

This project was conducted in partnership with AIIMS and UNAIDS.

 

Activities/Services

The study reflects the presence of large number of IDU cases in the said states and demands urgently to start the harm reduction services in order to reduce the vulnerability of the IDUs to infections like HIV and other blood borne viruses.