The 2nd National Conference on Harm Reduction held on October 20-21, 2008 in Vere Palace with the financial support of Open Society Georgia Foundation. The conference aimed at promoting harm reduction activities, namely, raising awareness of the society on ideology and approaches in harm reduction.
On October 20-21, 2008 in Vere Palace, the 2nd National Conference on the Reduction of Drug related Harm was organized by Harm Reduction Georgia Network and Open Society Georgia Foundation. The conference was held with the financial support of European Union, Open Society Georgia Foundation and The Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB and Malaria.
The conference aimed at promoting harm reduction activities, namely, raising awareness of the society on ideology and approaches in harm reduction; supporting importance of protecting human rights with regard to harm reduction; sharing experience on achievements and obstacles to the development and establishment of harm reduction programs in different counties throughout the world.
Manana Jebashvili, the deputy minister of Labor, Health and Social Affairs and Otar Toidze, head of health and social affairs committee of the parliament, opened the conference.The first lady of Georgia and the chair of the coordination council of The Global fund to fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, Sandra Roelofs took part in the conference. The foreign participants of the conference were represented by harm reduction experts from Great Britain, Canada, Hungary, Lithuania, Ukraine, as well as from UN drug control and crime prevention Vienna headquarter.
A special session was held for civil sector, at which the representative of Gori and Tbilisi organizations were granted special awards of achievements in harm reduction activities.
Event Press-Release (Download in Georgian)
A story dedicated to the conference on broadcasting company Rustavi 2 (Download in Georgian)
Tea Axobadze
National Public Health Program