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2007 News - International Harm Reduction Association | | | | |
| ‘Sponsorship, Exhibition and Advertising Opportunities’ Brochure Now Available
| The annual IHRA conferences attract over 1,200 people from around 90 countries each year and, as such, represent a great opportunity to promote your company, products and services to an international market.
We have a range of sponsorship, exhibition and advertising opportunities for this conference. There are also discounts available for early bookings, so please visit the 'Exhibitors, Sponsors and Supporters’ section of the website for more information.
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| Conference Registration and Abstract Submission System Open
| IHRA and the Conference Consortium are pleased to announce that the Harm Reduction 2008 registration and abstract submission system is now open. To access the system, please click the link below.
When you first access the system, you will be asked to create a new user account by completing your personal details and choosing a user name and password. Once you have created your user account, you will be able to update your details and submit an abstract for the conference (by clicking the “your submissions” link on the system). As the conference approaches, you will also be able to use the system to check your abstract status and make payments for the conference.
Year on year, the numbers of delegates attending the IHRA conferences continues to grow. In Warsaw (May 2007), over 1,200 delegates attended from 89 countries around the world, and we reviewed over 1,000 abstracts to create the conference programme. Please circulate the conference website address – www.ihraconferences.net - to your colleagues and contacts to ensure that Harm Reduction 2008 is bigger and better than ever!
| Click Here to Register Now!
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| 2008 Conference Website Launched
| IHRA and the Conference Consortium are pleased to announce the launch of www.ihraconferences.net - the new website for “Harm Reduction 2008: IHRA’s 19th International Conference”, which is scheduled to take place in May 2008 in Barcelona, Spain. The website, which will be updated from now right up until the conference itself, is the first port of call for any information and enquiries about the event itself, the registration process, the programme, abstract submission, travel and accommodation – as well as providing overviews, resources and photos from the previous 18 conferences in this series.
IHRA’s harm reduction conferences (formerly known as the ‘International Conference on the Reduction of Drug Related Harm’), have been held around the world each year since 1990. They have become must attend events for the harm reduction field - the key forum for the dissemination of ideas, research, projects and practice. These events have helped to put harm reduction on the map and to coordinate advances, innovations, evidence and advocacy in this field.
The most recent event (the 18th International Conference on the Reduction of Drug Related Harm in Warsaw, Poland in May 2007) attracted over 1,200 delegates from nearly 90 countries and featured five days of knowledge sharing, networking and education in the field of harm reduction. The delegates included frontline workers, researchers, students, policy makers, members of governments, officials from law enforcement agencies and the judiciary, criminal justice workers, UN officials, members of national and international NGO’s and members of international and national drug user organisations.
“Harm Reduction 2008” will take place from Sunday 11th to Thursday 15th May 2008 at the Palacio de Congresos, Fira de Barcelona, Spain. The conference theme is “Towards a Global Approach” – which encapsulates the need to increase the geographical coverage of effective, evidence-based harm reduction interventions, but also the need for harm reduction to reach out and embrace other fields such as human rights, poverty alleviation and economic development. The conference will consist of plenary sessions, major sessions, symposia, workshops, training events, poster exhibitions, and satellite sessions. There will also be a film festival, an exhibition area for sponsors and supporters, the annual IHRA award presentations, and a variety of social and networking events.
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| Previous Conferences – Call for Information
| IHRA is pleased to announce the launch of a new website for their annual international harm reduction conferences. The website aims to be the first port of call for all information and enquiries relating to the next event in this series - “Harm Reduction 2008” – but also an archived resource for the previous 18 conferences.
Since the first event in Liverpool (in 1990) the conference has promoted harm reduction research, approaches and best practice around the world. Each of the previous events will have a dedicated page on this new website containing (where possible) overviews, resources and photos. The ‘Previous Conferences’ section of the website currently contains information on the last five events, and will be further developed throughout 2007.
In order to create a valuable archive of the last 18 events, we would like all IHRA members and friends to send us any information that you may have from past conferences – such as photographs and presentations – that we may upload onto this website. If you have any information that you would like to share with us, please contact IHRA’s Communications and Project Development Officer, Jamie Bridge.
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| Over 1,200 people attend 18th IHRA Conference in Warsaw
| IHRA’s 18th International Conference on the Reduction of Drug Related Harm took place in May 2007 in Warsaw, Poland. The five-day event was attended by well in excess of 1,200 people from over 80 countries around the world (a record high number of countries). There were around 90 sessions (containing around 300 oral presentations and 300 poster presentations) covering a wide range of topics including illicit drugs, alcohol, tobacco, sex work, HIV/AIDS, young people, and prisons. The speakers at the conference covered major international organisations and donors (such as UNAIDS and the World Bank), and leading academics, advocates and practitioners from around the world.
Even before the conference had officially begun, there were countless meetings and satellite events taking place – including the 2nd Congress of the International Network of People who Use Drugs (INPUD), and meetings organised by the World Health Organization, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the International Youth Harm Reduction Initiative, and the International Nursing Harm Reduction Network There was also a meeting between all of the regional harm reduction networks to discuss future coordinated campaigns and advocacy efforts.
The overall theme of the conference was “Harm Reduction Coming of Age” – a title which, in the words of Professor Gerry Stimson (the IHRA Executive Director) in the opening session, “reminds us of what has been achieved so far, what is still left to achieve, and how to take harm reduction forward”. Also in the opening session, JVR Prasada Rao from (the UNAIDS Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific) told delegates that “focused harm reduction programs which reach people who inject drugs must be built into the national AIDS plans”, and that “access to antiretroviral therapy among this group is unacceptably low due in part to lack of information, exclusion and widespread stigma and discrimination".
|  Click here to view Professor Gerry Stimson’s opening speech [PDF: 36KB]
| Click here to view the conference press release from UNAIDS [PDF: 26KB]
| The topics examined at the conference included alcohol harm reduction, sex work harm reduction, legalisation and regulatory frameworks, drug consumption rooms, harm reduction in prisons, stimulant and party drug use, medication assisted treatment, young people, tobacco harm reduction, needle exchange, advocacy case studies, and universal access. Additionally, the official rapporteur presentation for the conference identified major shifts at the conference towards ‘bottom-up’ (or ‘grass-root’ movements), identifying specific drug use settings and groups, dealing with a wider range of harms (rather than just HIV/AIDS), and focusing on the developing world.
| Click here to view the Rapporteur Presentation from the closing session [PDF: 76KB]
| In the conference’s closing session, Dr. Vladimir Mendelevich received the International Rolleston Award for his continued advocacy and support for harm reduction and medication assisted treatment in Russia in the face of widespread vilification and the threat of imprisonment for his stance. The National Rolleston Award was presented to Marek Zygaldo in recognition of his pioneering efforts in Poland, where he has been at the forefront of harm reduction for over 20 years. The Travis Jenkins Award (presented to a current or former injecting drug user who has made an outstanding contribution to harm reduction) was presented to Alexandra (Sasha) Volgina, a Russian drug user activist who works in a hostile environment to ensure that drug users are seen not as problems, but as partners and experts. Finally, the Film Festival Award was won by Eugene Zaharov and Sergey Bogatyrev for their film entitled “FrontAids”.
Also in the closing session, Lady Jocelyn Keith (from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies) delivered a wonderful summary in the form of a fable in which she (as the fairy godmother) bestowed four birthday gifts to a teenager named IHRA – the gifts of Imagination, Humanity, Reliability and Agility for future years.
| Click here to view Lady Jocelyn Keith’s closing speech [PDF: 36KB]
| Overall, the conference was a great success and we now look forward to next year’s event, scheduled for May 11th – 15th 2008 in Barcelona, Spain. This next conference is entitled “Harm Reduction 2008” and carries the strap-line “Towards a Global Approach” to explore how harm reduction can further expand from its current position in terms of geographical coverage and scale, but also in terms of integration with other movements (such as human rights, social development and poverty alleviation). The 2008 event promises to be even bigger and better than this year, and will aim to showcase the latest policy, research and practice developments from the field. Conference updates will be available on the IHRA website shortly.
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