r. Rajesh Gopal – Rendering Services with Difference

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r. Rajesh Gopal – Rendering Services with Difference. By News Team | Category: Health

Dr. Avnish Jolly:Working with of Dr. Rajesh Gopal is learning experience, where we were selected as a `Champion' – for the visioning workshop for the reduction of stigma and discrimination of the people living with HIV/AIDS (PLHA) on the basis of the feedback of the members of the Solution Exchange forum of the UNAIDS in September 2006,provided from time to time.

Facilitated formation of Action Group for the reduction of stigma and discrimination faced by the PLHIV. Our team members Joe from Australia and Aditi Tondon from India facilitated for rendering their services in the community. I wrote upon them last week.

Dr. Rajesh Gopal, is a State Government officer in the department of health and family welfare, and has been working with the Government of Gujarat for the last 12 years. He has been on full time deputation to the Gujarat State AIDS Control Society (GSACS) for more than 7 and a half years, where he is currently working as a Joint Director being actively involved in the STI/HIV/AIDS control/Blood Safety activities, implementing the National AIDS Control Programme in the state of Gujarat.

He has also been working in the area of development of Gender Action Plan for the NACO (with the United Nations Development Fund for Women-UNIFEM), formation of an Action Group for reduction of stigma and discrimination faced by the people living with HIV (PLHIV) (with Solution Exchange of the UNAIDS – the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS) and the review of the Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme (RNTCP) as a member of the Joint Monitoring Mission (JMM) of the Government of India and the World Health Organization (WHO).

As a technical programme manager for the implementation of the National AIDS control Program in the state of Gujarat, Dr. Gopal is committed to the containment of the dual epidemics-the pandemic of HIV and the epidemic of the stigma and discrimination faced by the PLHIV and is more than just interested in the establishment of healthcare as a human right.

The slogan coined by him in the year 2005 in a NACO meeting at Jaipur-"HIV/AIDS is Everyone's responsibility" found place on the first page of the UNAIDS table calendar for the year 2006.The same is the key mandate of the National Council on AIDS headed by the Prime Minister of India with an emphasis on mainstreaming of HIV/AIDS activities with myriad governmental departments, organizations and the Civil Society organizations (CSOs).

Dr. Gopal organized the very first workshop on Mainstreaming of HIV and Gender at Gandhinagar in Gujarat, in collaboration with the UNDP and NACO. The workshop was participated by the representatives from different states, UN agencies, CBOs, NGOs, sexuality minorities, PLHA and others.

He has widely interacted on the pertinent issues pertaining to gender, STDs, HIV/AIDS, rights of the HIV positive people and other marginalized communities like sex workers, representatives of sexuality minorities etc. in different fora including electronic discussion groups .Pursuing CDC fellowship on public health and course on human rights law.

He has made oral presentations in International Conferences on AIDS and other health related themes /issues on prevention of HIV, including participation in Kigali, Rwanda and Colombo, Sri Lanka in 2007.

Awards and Recognition

• Honoured for remarkable work during the post-flood relief and rehabilitation on Word Health Day where an award was conferred on him by the State Health Minister Shri Ashok Bhatt on April 7, 2007.

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