Our blog will not be updated

Dear visitors, the blog will not be updated anymore as PINK Armenia is active on social media and has several other online platforms.
For more information please visit our official website, where you find also links to other products and online platforms

www.pinkarmenia.org

Follow us on:

Hand up for #HIVPrevention

More than 30 years December 1st is known as the World AIDS Day. In the lead-up to World AIDS Day 2016, the hands up for #HIVprevention campaign will explore different aspects of HIV prevention and how they relate to specific groups of people, such as adolescent girls and young women, key populations and people living with HIV.

To become a part of the world campaign, UNAIDS is asking people around the world to submit:

• A photograph of a word or short phrase written on the palm of their hand summarizing what we need to strengthen HIV prevention efforts, for example more condoms, empowerment, inclusion, pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), rights for women and girls; and/or
• A short video message (maximum 30 seconds) explaining what in their view needs to be done to reduce new HIV infections in their community. 

In their website, UNAIDS also provides resources, templates for posters and banners, as well as ready materials that civil society, individual and people who care, to use in their websites and on social media.

Lena Nanushyan

What does #HIVprevention mean 4 you? Civil Society activists working on HIV, AIDS and human rights issues in Armenia gave various answers to that question: mostly they mentioned dignity, justice, access to anti-retroviral treatment treatment, HIV testing, access to Opiate Substitution Treatment, human rights protection of most at risk population, care and support.

Lena Nanushyan, National Programme Office, UNAIDS Armenia said: "For me it is #HIVtesting. Testing will prevent deaths & new cases. Hands up for #HIVprevention!"

"Now is the time to come together again and finish what we started. Let us seize this opportunity and join the fast-track towards ending AIDS as a public health threat by 2030." Michel Sidibé, UNAIDS Executive Director.

PINK Armenia Joins the Community, Rights, Gender (CRG) Working Group

Adjacent to the Country Coordination Mechanism for HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (CCM) of the Republic of Armenia, a new working group has been formed—“Community, Rights, Gender” (CRG). PINK Armenia was invited to be a part of the working group.

The group aims to ensure community involvement in decision-making processes and to ensure the inclusion of human rights protection and gender equality within CCM. One of its main objectives is the monitoring and analysis of human rights violation cases among people who use drugs, sex workers, men who have sex with men and people living with certain infections, as well as ensuring the accessibility of medical assistance within the spheres of HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis.

Lips of Pride

HAYP Pop Up Gallery, a moving art collective that curates and sets up art exhibitions across Armenia, dedicated its most recent gallery, “Lips of Pride,” to women artists, women’s bodies and sexualities, and societal perceptions of shame in Armenia, from April 8-18, 2015. “Lips of Pride” aimed to begin a conversation on a taboo topic, and to give a voice to those who are often silenced by shame.

For 10 days the gallery hosted several events that facilitated that conversation, including a panel discussion on “Shame & Sexuality” with Ani Jilozyan from Women's Support Center, sexologist Dr. Narine Nersisyan, and PINK Armenia psychologist Lilit Avetisyan, who talked about how speech affects our perspectives on sexuality, the role that shame plays in our lives and the affects of shame on LGBT people. Lilit’s final message for participants of the discussion was that we should never be ashamed of our sexualities, which is an indivisible part of who we are. PINK’s engagement in the exhibit events continued with the workshop “Understanding Human Sexuality,” which covered personal experiences and a general understanding of the different dimensions of sexuality.

PINK Armenia and staff members continue receiving threats

PINK continues documenting the hate speech and messages calling for hate to PINK’s president Nvard Margaryan, NGO members, and to the PINK Armenia Facebook page. The frequency of such messages has increased especially after Nvard Margaryan’s participation in a TV show, “Kisabac Lusamutner (Half-open Windows)”, where a psychologist announced that she cures homosexuality and a lawyer threatened to burn gay people. Although a complaint was submitted to the Ethics Committee of the Chamber of Advocates in Armenia, and the Chamber of Advocates applied a disciplinary proceeding against the lawyer, in the letter The Chamber of Advocates mentioned how the natural family can only be a union between a man and a women according Armenia’s “amended” Constitution. PINK is now documenting all the messages containing hate speech, as all the previous complaints to the General Prosecutor’s Office on hate speech messages and comments were largely ignored or found not to have a basis for criminal proceedings.