Project title

The main goal of the project is to increase access to HIV prevention services for IDUs in Lithuania.

Project objectives:

• To provide HIV prevention through self-help groups.
• To raise awareness of IDUs on preventing HIV transmission.
• To inform IDUs about available services in the community, including opioid substitution treatment.
• To strengthen umbrella organization of drug users "Tavo drugys" in Vilnius and Kaunas and to contribute to HIV prevention among IDUs in those and other cities of Lithuania.

Self-help group activities (HIV prevention peer-to-peer trainings, meetings) were organized in Vilnius and Kaunas offices once a week or on a request. Provided psychologists counselling in Kaunas increased the number of drug users visiting "Tavo Drugys", though no one in Vilnius showed interest in psychologists' consultations. Legal counselling on human rights of arrested and suspected drug users in Vilnius was provided once a week or on a request. Apart from that Vilnius and Kaunas offices provided wide range of services for drug users: not only trainings and seminars, but also meetings and consultations on different issues (where to make/change the passport, where to bind a wound), accompanying drug users to hospitals, policlinics, pharmacies, courts, etc.

During the project implementation organization had organized trainings in Vilnius and Kaunas offices as well as in other places for organization's activists, colleagues, and other people. Association's activists also participated and raised their competence on the issue in trainings and events organized by UNODC, Lithuanian AIDS Center, Lithuanian Drug Control Department, Vilnius Center for Addictive Disorders, as well as in international conferences in Belgium, Ukraine, and Poland.

Association "Tavo drugys" on an international Drug User Day and All Saint Day organized an event "IDU - International Drug Users Day Vėlinės". During the event twenty members and volunteers burned candles on unknown persons' graves in Vilnius cemetery. This peaceful action drew the attention of media.

UNODC budget