Introduction of ACET Russia

ACET - stands for AIDS Care Education Traning. The official name of ACET Russia is ANPO "ACET" which means Autonomous Non-profit Prevention Organization "ACET"

«ACET» INTERNATIONAL ALLIANCE

ANPO "ACET" is member of the ACET International Alliance ACET International Alliance is a group of independent organisations, each based in their own country and sharing a common aim and purpose. ACET UK exists to raise funds and provide technical support for the Alliance and to carry out prevention work. ACET stands for AIDS, Care, Education and Training and was founded by Dr Patrik Dixon in 1988.

• ACET exists as a Christian response to the HIV and AIDS pandemic as part of our calling to care for the poor, vulnerable and marginalised.
• ACET programmes work with those infected and affected by HIV and AIDS without any discrimination on the basis of race, religion, disability, sexual orientation or any other factor.
• Each programme is run to high standards, adapted to cultural and local needs, with shared vision and values:
• Our vision is to reduce the impact of AIDS - to make AIDS history.Unconditional, compassionate care for all affected by HIV/AIDS

We aim to provide:

• Compassionate, unconditional care for all who are affected by HIV, regardless of how they come to be so, fighting stigma and discrimination and encouraging acceptance of those with HIV.
• Professional, life-saving education: encouraging long-term healthy lifestyle choices, seeking to give young people confidence to resist peer pressure and to find their own way, with messages that are clear and adapted to each audience.
• Effective community based training with a holistic, culturally sensitive approach to personal and community responses to HIV and AIDS, strongly encouraging indigenous leadership, working closely with churches and other faith-based organisations.

The main work of the Alliance is carried out by the National Resource Centres, programmes based in countries such as England , Ireland , India , Uganda , Thailand , the Czech Republic , Slovakia , Russia and Ukraine.

AIDS Epidemic in Russia

According UNAIDS there are about 1-1.5 million HIV+ people living in Russia (There are already 650 000 HIV+ officially registered). With 5 million drug users, a million cases of HIV, 5% of young people HIV infected in some parts of Russia and the fastest rate of spread of any country in the world, Russia is on the edge of a future AIDS catastrophe. If the epidemic continues at this rate there will be about 5-10 million people who are HIV+ in 2025. (find more inforation about the AIDS epidemic at http://www.unaids.ru/ ).

«ACET» PREVENTION WORK IN RUSSIA

At the moment there are active ACET volunteers educators in more than 60 Russian cities and villages. They do AIDS prevention work in schools using ACET prevention materials. The basic ACET AIDS prevention programme consist of two 45 minutes lessons which are focused on the 14 to 20 years age group.

We have published a package of coloured educational posters to show during the lessons with pictures of the HIV virus, ways of transmission and so on. The coloured posters and slides are very important as they make the lessons more interesting and help teenagers to understand and remember the most important information.

Our first lesson gives balanced basic information about HIV/AIDS and about the methods of transmission. We talk about the need for advocacy for HIV+ people and encourage children not to reject them too. The second lesson is focused on prevention and showing children how they can protect themselves from HIV.

Our prevention work is based on ABC model of prevention:

• A bstinence which means no sexual relationships before marriage and delay of sexual debute
• B e faithful to one partner in marriage or in other existing relationship, decreasing the number of sexual partners
• C ondoms- use condoms in any sexual relationship if you are not living according A and B.

ACET Russia has more than 200 trained HIV volunteer educators working in 60 cities across 11 time zones, assisting those with responsibility for schools, colleges, youth projects, orphanages, hostels, drug rehabilitation centres, prisons and parts of the army. During 2011/2012 school year year they have reached more than:

• 617 Russian schools with 70,000 young people at risk, with a life-saving message about AIDS.
• in more than 2227 classrooms
• at many unversities
• and also in prisons of some regions
• in many drug rehabilitation centres
• They have reached more than 500,000 young people during last 9 years of prevention work.

Some teams are also running counselling services, advocacy, self help groups for HIV+ people and telephone help-lines. Most of these people are volunteers. 100 educators attended a five day annualy national training programme in Togliatti , August 2012. ACET Russia is aiming to extend the team to new volunteers, in the race against time to try and contain further explosive spread of HIV, particularly among young people and others at risk.

Hundreds of trainees have been trained at ACET training seminars and received the ACET resource pack and have begun work of their own, rather than under the ACET name. ACET Russia is training people from many other established organisations who are seeking to develop AIDS programmes. At the moment there are active ACET prevention educators in several regional cities all around Russia: Togliatti, Samara, Orenburg, Orsk, Ulyanovsk, Ekaterinburg, Perm, Ufa, Moscow, St.Petersburg, Kaluga, Smolensk, Penza, Novocerkassk, Kazan, Saratov, Celyabinsk, Miass, Petrozavodsk, Krasnoyarsk, Novosibirsk, Irkutsk, Novokuznetsk, Norilsk, Ulan-Ude,Chita and others.

ACET TRAINING PREVENTION SEMINARS

The main ACET office and resource center for the whole of Russia is in the city of Togliatti (a city of 700,000 inhabitants on the Volga river, which has the highest percentage of HIV+ people in Russia - more than eleven thousand HIV+ officially registered). The resource centre provides HIV/AIDS literature, methodological materials, the ACET bulletin and other information support for educators.

The training seminars for new ACET educators are taught Marek Slansky (the president of ANPO «ACET» in Russia ) and other experienced Russian ACET educators. We provided more than 60 ACET training seminars on HIV\AIDS prevention during 2006-2009 in many Russian regions.

«ACET» PREVENTION BOOKS in Russian

«Sex - the Cherry on the cake» ,is a book written by Tomas Rehak , (Czech Republic) which encourages young people to sexual abstinence and faithfulness, and contains basic information about HIV/AIDS. 5,000 copies were published in 2009. The book is a good tool to motivate youth workers, and other young people and can be used as the teaching material to for AIDS prevention lessons.

«Alghoritm of Love» , is a book written by ACET Russia trainers Michael and Nadezda Telepovy, which explain young people how to build long term relationships, and prepare for succesfull marriage. 5,000 copies were published in 2009. The book is a good tool for school teachers, social workers, psychologies and can be used as the teaching material about dating, buidling relationships and preparation for marriage.

«AIDS and You» , written by Dr. Patrick Dixon, the founder of ACET International Alliance, tells the facts, and challenges readers to urgent, practical action. This is ACET's foundation book, which has been contextualised and translated for the Russian context. It includes case studies of some successful and effective Christian HIV/AIDS projects from Eastern Europe and Russia . The book can motivate educators, church leaders, leaders of drug rehab centres, social workers and others to fight the AIDS epidemic.

Both books can be read at our website in section "ACET Literature"

Contact address

614065, Perm
P.O.Box 2200
ANPO "ACET"

Phone: +7 (342) 294-65-75 (fax), +7 (912) 984-88-19

E-mail: acetrussia@gmail.com

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