NGO Forum news
Monthly NGO Forum invitations and press releases.
Access to health services for ethnic minorities: Present to future
If we are to classify people who do not have access to health services in Thailand as a group that is hard to reach, vulnerable or marginalised, certainly ethnic minorities can be found in this group. They face many difficulties in accessing heath services including language barriers and low income. Ethnic minorities who are living with HIV particularly face severe problems because they need ready access to life prolonging antiretroviral treatment (ART), Opportunistic Infections (OI) medicines and other services.
NGO Forum Press statement
The NGO Forum, entitled "Lessons learned from the XVII International AIDS Conference" brought together 30 community workers and NGO representatives on August 26th, 2008. These were assembled to exchange information and experiences of those who attended the conference in Mexico City (3-8 August 2008) and to summarize the lessons learned. Speakers included Mr. Kirangkrai Chaimuangdee, Director of The Life Skills Development Foundation, Rev. Sanan Wuthi, Coordinator of the AIDS Ministry, the Church of Christ in Thailand, Ms. Pornpit Pakmai, Coordinator of Empower Foundation, Chiang Mai branch, and with Ms. Sirilak Angkoonpiriya from Thai Youth Action Programme as a director.
Lessons Learned from the XVII International AIDS Conference
The XVII International AIDS Conference was held from 3-8 August 2008 in Mexico City, Mexico. It was the first time, the world AIDS event was organized in a Latin American country with the goal to improve the worldwide response to HIV/AIDS.
Why the community matters to effective HIV and AIDS responses?
Chiang Mai, Thailand - Communities need to play a more significant role in the design and implementation of HIV prevention, treatment, care and research programmes in order to enhance HIV and AIDS responses.
Community-based HIV/AIDS Response: Prevention, Care and Treatment and Research
One of the ways to sustain HIV/AIDS response is to work with communities to raise prevention awareness and to strengthen these communities. HIV/AIDS, like many health issues, is a symptom of complicated multi-faceted layers of social maladies. Experiences and learning in the response to HIV/AIDS in the past two decades has convinced NGOs that HIV/AIDS is not only related to the medical aspects of the disease. To address the issue efforts must be focused on the root causes. Thus, various sectors attempted to unveil layer after layer of the problem, including sexual inequality, poverty, stigma as well as discrimination.
Thai community HIV/AIDS working: the Concepts on Risk Group and Risk Behavior
The April NGO Forum was organized by Health & Development Networks (HDN) in collaboration with several partner organizations on 29 April 2008. The title was "Thai community HIV/AIDS working: the Concepts on Risk Group and Risk Behaviorrrrr". An open discussion, the event was facilitated by Monruedee Laphimon, researcher from Health Policy Study Centre, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Mahidol University, and member of the Thai Women and HIV/AIDS Taskforce (TWAT). Several issues were raised during the discussion including:
Thai community HIV/AIDS working: the Concepts on Risk Group and Risk Behavior
Recently, there has been a debate among NGO workers and community members about the Thai Red Crosssâs refusal to receive blood donated by MSM. The discussion was especially active among those people who are working with many groups classified as âhigh risk groupssâ including men who have sex with men (MSM), youth, sex workers, etc.
