Police and NGOs- Commemorate World AIDS Day 2008

[Guest guest]

Dear Colleagues,

The Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, jointly with NACO

and UNAIDS, is working on a comprehensive strategy for HIV programming

with the Central and State Police Forces across the country. The

strategy, besides addressing vulnerability reduction of personnel

emphasizes proactive support by police to Government and NGO

initiatives on HIV prevention especially with most-at-risk

populations, viz sex workers, MSMs and IDUs.

An important element of the this strategy is the designation of Nodal

Officers for NGO Coordination at the State and District levels to

interface with civil society for HIV prevention initiatives. The

Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India has shown an

extraordinary commitment to the National response to HIV by

introducing this unique intervention. At almost no cost, this ensures

long term coordination between police and civil society in an

institutionalized manner for supporting communities with prevention,

treatment, care and support services and in achieving the targets of

universal access. This intervention by the Ministry removes the

administrative cost of setting up initiatives by officers locally. As

well as demonstrating the positive contribution of the police, the

measure will go a long way in assisting NGOs, not only in HIV

prevention, but in other social programmes such as in the response to

child abuse and violence against women.

You will be happy to know that in an effort to institutionalize the

coordination between these Nodal Officers and the NGOs, we have

planned commemoration of World AIDS Day 2008 in each district and at

the state level by a simple event involving NGOs and Police officers

and men in the Police lines or other suitable venue.

To facilitate this commemoration at the state and district level, we

have sent IEC materials to each district headquarters in the country.

The programme will include a screening of the short film " Saavdhaan "

(http://www.unaids.org.in/new/displaymore.asp?page=1 & pagenav=title & subitemkey=84\

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9 & subchkey=126 & itemid=525 & chname=Knowledge%20Centre & subchnm=),

which contains all essential messages on HIV prevention and fighting

stigma related to the disease. (This film has been jointly produced

by Border Security Force and UNAIDS and was released by the Union Home

Minister on World AIDS Day 2007

http://www.unaids.org.in/new/displaymore.asp?subitemkey=703 & itemid=484 & subchnm= & \

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subchkey=0 & chname=Events

..) The screening will be followed by a discussion on how police and

civil society can work together for implementing various social

legislations and addressing issues like child abuse and violence

against women.

We request you to kindly inform your NGO partners in the field to get

in touch with the district Superintendents of Police and participate

in the WAD commemoration to further the agenda of an effective

response to the epidemic.

Should you need any additional information, please let us know.

(Sarita Jadav jadavs@... +91-11-41354545; Ranjan Dwivedi

dwivedir@... +91-9810505068)

Best regards,

Ranjan

PS. Read feature story on India's Police support to community AIDS

responses

http://www.unaids.org/en/KnowledgeCentre/Resources/FeatureStories/archive/2008/2\

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0081110_India_police_support.asp

Ranjan Dwivedi

Technical Advisor, UNAIDS

A2/35 Safdarjung Enclave, New Delhi, India-110029

Tel :+91-11-41354545 Ext 317

Fax :+91-11-41354534

e-mail: dwivedir@...

Web: www.unaids.org.in

www.ngogateway.org