September 17, 2009, at House of Cinema (city of Kyiv), HealthRight International and the Ukrainian Foundation for Public Health together with partner organizations presented a documentary called “Coming Home” and a series of posters, developed for the purpose to expand access of women-users of injection drugs (IDU) to substitution therapy programs (ST) and additional social and medical services in Ukraine.
How and why does a woman become dependent on drugs? How is her fate going? How can she overcome her dependency on drugs? How can she learn to be happy again? What will this give her? Answers to these questions are provided by the twenty-minute documentary film about life, problems and needs of Katya, a young mother, who became a client of a substitution therapy program in Kyiv. The film demonstrates a positive influence of the ST program on quality life of the main character and her child, and the film also has commentaries of leading experts, medics and ST program clients themselves, regarding effectiveness of such programs. The event also presented a series of posters, developed by Saatchi&Saatchi Advertising Agency for the purpose of informing IDU women and their surrounding people about the ST program and for contributing to de-stigmatization of IDU women among medical workers.
“…In Ukraine, there are up to 425,000 users of injection drugs and one third of them are women. We hope and believe that our film will help thousands of these women to come home thanks to substitution maintenance therapy…”, announced Halyna Skipalska, Director of Representative Office of HealthRight International in Ukraine and International Charitable Foundation Ukrainian Foundation for Public Health, before the beginning of the film.
According to Olha Belyayeva, Head of the Board of All-Ukrainian NGO Association of Participants of SMT of Ukraine, “…currently in Ukraine, there are almost 900 women who participate in substitution therapy programs; they have an opportunity to be sensitive and kind mothers and helpers for their parents. For us, support with medicines of substitution therapy is a life line that helps us while learning to ‘swim’ in the rough ‘sea of life’: we get professions, restore relations with our families and the most important thing is that we restore our feeling of dignity and self-respect…”.
Viktoria Tymoshevska, Public Health Program Director of the International Renaissance Foundation, noted that “…the International Renaissance Foundation supports development of substitution therapy programs in Ukraine by giving special attention to accessibility of this type of services for women….”
In view of Dmytro Sherembei, Director of Communications of Policy and Advocacy Department of All-Ukrainian Network of PLWH, “…only humane society is capable to implement ST programs. I am very glad that Ukraine is ready to help and cure its citizens, who have become dependent on drugs, and not to persecute them. This approach will save thousands of lives, preserve families, will let children have parents and will bring children back to their parents…”
According to Katya, the main character of the film, “…coming home is the most important thing, provided by a substitution therapy to a woman. …Coming to my home and my kid…The substitution therapy has given me a lot… .”
Tetyana Kachorovska, Account Director in Saatchi&Saatchi Advertising Agency, emphasized, “…If a drug-dependent person understands the necessity to fight for her/his life, this person deserves society’s support. And substitution therapy, in my view, is a second chance for many people… .”
The following were the organizers of the event: ICF Ukrainian Foundation for Public Health, HealthRight International, ACO All-Ukrainian Network of PLWH, International Renaissance Foundation, Saatchi&Saatchi Advertising Agency, Spolucheny Svity Production Company. The project is implemented by ICF Ukrainian Foundation for Public Health under the support of the Open Society Institute.
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Yulia Gordonna, Assistant to the Director of the Health Program tel: +380 (44) 461 97 09 | fax: +380 (44) 486 76 29 email: gordonna@irf.kiev.ua office: Kyiv, Artema Street, 44, room 4 |
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