Location: Bauska and Ogre (Latvia)

Event

On July 6th, musicians and amateur artists will perform on the streets of  Bauska and Ogre. Through performance and distribution of materials they will raise awareness amongst the youth and the policy makers of these municipalities.

Background

In 2008, Latvia was ranked first among the European countries in terms of new HIV cases among drug users. Today there are more than 4,600 registered HIV infected persons and infection is spreading in the general population due to sexual contacts, mostly with people from drug users community.

In Latvia, the HIV epidemic is highly concentrated among intravenous drug users. Despite the fact that harm reduction (HR) programmes have been implemented and developed in Latvia since 1999 and some progress in this field has been made, these programmes still face many challenges. These challenges include negative attitude from the general public, under estimation by local authorities and government officials on the real benefit of HR programmes on communities and lack of finances for the implementation of HR programmes. There is a constant need to reinforce the necessity of these programmes and fight for their continuance.