BFPA Annual Retreat Meeting 2018 – The New coming 25
Panagyurishte, July 13-15, 2018
Besides the pleasure of meeting, discussing and having fun together with our branch managers, some of our most prominent and active volunteers, representatives of BFPA’s Board and key partners of the Association, at the 2018 Annual retreat meeting we put the start of a lot of activities for the present and upcoming programmatic period and also shared outcomes of successfully implemented and finalized activities. We called the meeting “The New coming 25” – it is the first year after our 25th anniversary. BFPA’s Executive Director Dr. Radosveta Stamenkova reported the activities for 2018 until now and outlined the forthcoming ones, the perspectives from the viewpoint of the volunteers, the Board and partners were discussed, we tried to foresee the challenges in connection with our future activities in 2018-2019 and their eventual success, which usually brings on more work, and we still find it is good news.
For the Management board, staff, volunteers and supporters of the Bulgarian Family Planning and Sexual Health Association (BFPA) it is a great sadness to share that the first (and only so far) Honorary President of BFPA Professor Todor Chernev passed away on June 4 2018 the age of 72. He was one of the most outstanding gynecologists in the country, with many awards and achievements, including the national “Golden Hands” award. Besides all his different duties and important causes he was supporting, the Professor , as we called him was one of the founders of BFPA and was President of its Management Board for more than a decade. Professor Chernev remained a reproductive health consultant of our clinic in Sofia for almost 25 years and was active in the work for providing access to health services for underserved and vulnerable groups. He will be missed a lot by his wife, two sons, granddaughter, relatives and friends. The short video below reflects just part of his initiatives and successes. RIP! You will be remembered.
Training of Trainers on Health Education
Sofia, May 18-19, 2018
The Bulgarian Family Planning and Sexual Health Association (BFPA) conducted on May 18-19, 2018 the first for this year training of trainers on health and sexuality education „About the Shared Knowledge”. High school students from 8th to 11th grade from Sofia, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Stara Zagora, Troyan and Gorna Oryahovitza were introduced to topics connected with prevention of reproductive health and effective ways for delivering health messages to their peers. The participants were from schools with different profile – entrepreneurship, math, natural science, informatics, humanities…, and what united them was the expectation to gain new knowledge and make new friends. „How can one understand that he/she is suffering from Syphilis?”, „Which of the sources of information are credible?” and „Is it possible an person living with HIV to have life expectancy as long as an uninfected one?” – were some of the questions during the sessions.
BFPA presents its newest edition: a leaflet on Fake news
Sofia, May 17 2018
A new edition with relevant information to recognize fake news was published by the Bulgarian Family Planning and Sexual Health Association (BFPA). Author of the text is the journalist Polina Paunova and of the drawings – the artist Kremena Koeva. The leaflet has a focus to health, but treats fake news and disinformation as a whole. It is targeting young people, but is useful and appropriate for all age groups. „Fake News draw attention. They are scandalous. Shocking. Spicy. They are often about sex. Or about money. Or about death. Or about the three of the above together. Fake news are “grandiose”, “shocking” and reveal “a secret”. They are presented in a way that make you feel lost or shake your understanding of the world, on politics, medicine, authorities and celebrities. ... they discredit people, sometimes even entire countries. They do not have authors, but use names. They do not use factology, but simulate authenticity…“
Learning Action Partnership – Review of Opportunities for Future Collaborations
Sofia, May 16, 2018
New meeting of the Learning Action Partnership (LAP) was held on May 16, 2018 in Sofia. The participants made a review of what was done in the period between the last meeting up to now and discussed new working opportunities for the network. Ventzislav Kirkov, BFPA Program Manager and President of the Bulgarian Platform for International Development (BPID) presented the work of the Platform in the context of the Bulgarian Presidency of Council of EU, focusing his presentation at priority 16 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Different editions and initiatives of the LAP members were presented at the meeting. A proposal for collaboration with a Resource Centre against Sexual Violence in Concordia University in Montreal was discussed. The conception on working of the recently established ad hoc coalition on prevention of domestic violence and violence against women was presented shortly. LAP members were invited to apply for participation in the training for building narrative skills “Changing the narrative” organized by BFPA in October 2018 in Sofia with trainers form Columbia University.
Between November 23rd and 30th for a sixth consecutive year took place the European testing week, in which BFPA has participated from the very first year. The aim of the campaign is as much people as possible to be encouraged to know their HIV, Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C status and respectively either start therapy and/or to be informed about the risks of infection and how to avoid them. This year besides HIV and Hepatitis B and C, BFPA also implemented testing for syphilis as well as dissemination of free condoms, donated to the association by Durex Bulgaria. At BFPA’s medical center were performed a total of 75 tests - 29 for HIV, 15 for Hepatitis B, 15 for Hepatitis C and 16 for syphilis. 749 national and multinational organizations from all over Europe participated in the testing week this year, 16 of which from Bulgaria. On December 1st, the global day for battling HIV/AIDS, BFPA traditionally implements and supports different AIDS-prevention related activities and campaigns. Since the day itself falls on a weekend, some activities and campaigns were held during the weekend, some - on November 30th and on December 3rd.
On November 20th, 29 years ago, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child was accepted – a fundamental internationally recognized document which helps to create and develop adequate modern policies for improving the children’s well-being. To honour its ratification every year the members of the National Network for Children (NNC) organize public events to support child participation and help for the opinion of the young people to be heard. The name of the event announces it – it’s called Voice It. This year the topic of the event was chosen by the adolescents themselves and it concerns health and sexuality education. Location: the Largo in the heart of Sofia. Here are part of the musts and discussion topics: The need for health and sexuality education to be part of the school curriculum. When and where should the subject be presented, who should present it and not least – Why it is important for young people to have knowledge on all topics related to reproductive health? The topic was chosen by young people from Megaphone that were part of the panel and answered questions in connection with the forum topic, including prevention of trafficking, prevention of internet bullying, youth volunteering.
One of the main modules of the two-day training of young peer educators in Plovdiv was on puberty and growing up, during which for the first time was presented BFPA’s short film on puberty, made as a part of the project “The Challenges of Growing Up”, funded in the frame of Lidl Bulgaria’s “You and Lidl for a Better Life” initiative. After watching it, the young participants in the training who were from three Plovdiv and three Sofia schools, plus the young volunteers of Red Cross Youth in Plovdiv, Haskovo and Pazardjik shared their impressions and recommendations, as part of an open discussion and filling a prepared in advance questionnaire. Among the main recommendation was the film to also be shown to parents and to start showing with younger children around 5th grade. They see the video as a good starting point for an educational discussion and thus will be good for a start. The rest of the training modules included contraception, hygiene, STI and HIV prevention, family planning, communicational skills and team-building, and there were a lot of questions, comments and discussions. The BYRC volunteers who attended the training supported with up-to-date statistical data about hygiene, HIV statistics in Bulgaria, health messages and campaigns.
Panagyurishte, July 13-15, 2018
Todor Chernev, 1945-2018
Sofia, May 18-19, 2018
Sofia, May 17 2018
Sofia, May 16, 2018
