News

Two-day training to enhance the capacity for outreach work of volunteers from K7 Club was held in Veliko Tarnovo on 21 and 22 of July this year in the building of Regional Inspectorate for Protection and Control of Public Health. The training involved 20 volunteers, members of Club K7 of Center Amalipe, which performs the activities under Component 7: “Reducing vulnerability to HIV of young people at greatest risk (15-24) by increasing the range of services and programs for the youth” which is part of the National Program “Prevention and control of HIV/AIDS”, funded by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. In Veliko Turnovo these activities are implemented by Center Amalipe.

During the training the volunteers worked on the theme of fieldwork, which is among the main activities of Component 7 for prevention of HIV and is the biggest challenge as a method of work. Outreach work involves reaching out young people in vulnerable groups in their natural environment. This implies that working with them should occur in time when they are not in school and are victims of negative influences or their own risk behavior. Fundamental principles of outreach work is another topic, which was developed during the training.

Fieldwork itself is comprehensive activity as it reaches various groups of young people, some of which are marginalized. Analysis of specific vulnerable group or problem that the volunteers are facing is the first step to solving it, and then look for ways to induce change of existing negative practices. This required the examination of topics such as outreach work with the Roma community, which is a big part of of Component 7’s target group and it is fairly difficult to work with, if one is not familiar with the traditions of Roma culture. Another major target group of K7 is children and young people living in social institutions. Working with them requires the volunteers to have specialized skills, so this topic is always worked on and will be  deepened.