The BEARR Trust: Supporting vulnerable people in Eastern Europe, Russia, Central Asia and the Caucasus No 70, January 2018 Project ‘A Reboot’ by Gender Vector, Kyrgyzstan, partly funded by The BEARR Trust ‘How HIV became a Catastrophe in Project reports: Country profile: Russia and Ukraine’ by Ulla Pape – Institute for Democracy, Turkmenistan Moldova: ‘Psychological ‘HIV/AIDS in Eastern Europe and Central support for victims of BEARR’s Small Grants Asia – bucking the trend?’ Report of the trafficking and domestic Scheme 2018: call for BEARR Trust Annual conference, 2017 violence’ bids ‘Youth and Social Exclusion in Russia’s – Gender Vector, Kyrgyzstan: BEARR News Villages and Small Towns’ by Charlie ‘Training on mental health Walker issues for the gay community’ To donate, see www.bearr.org The BEARR Trust, 32–36 Loman Street Southwark, London SE1 0EH BEARR News No 70, January 2018 The BEARR Trust Small Grants Scheme The BEARR Trust Small Grants Scheme 2018 The BEARR Trust is pleased to announce What are the aims of the Criteria for selecting successful its Small Grants Scheme for 2018 and Scheme? applications invites applications from NGOs and The 2018 Small Grants Scheme aims to Initial selection of applications will be other organisations. Full details are given support and encourage NGOs to: done according to whether or not the below. The deadline for applications is application contains all the information 1 February 2018. • share experience and learning among NGOs with relevant aims asked for, the extent to which it furthers The fields to be covered by the Scheme the aims of The BEARR Trust, and the • disseminate good practice more in 2018 are: evidence that good use will be made of widely Projects aimed at improving the the resources available. • facilitate cooperation with and/or employability of young people (16-30) To make sure your application fits all coordination among NGOs and other with mental or physical disabilities. basic requirements please use the organisations working with relevant Grants may be made to organisations Checklist provided. groups in any of the countries which BEARR covers: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, • improve awareness of, or engage What happens next? public institutions in addressing the Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, The Trust will acknowledge relevant issues Moldova, Russia, Ukraine, Tajikistan, applications as they are received. If Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. • propose other, imaginative ways of you are submitting your application The Trust may wish to support a number achieving the Scheme’s aims within the last week of the deadline, of initiatives through the scheme, so please be patient in awaiting this proposals for grants of up to £3000 Who can apply for the grants? acknowledgement. It might take us up to are invited. Awards will be made on The scheme is open to applications from a week to send it. a matching basis, and will not exceed NGOs and other organisations active in A shortlist will be drawn up for further 50% of the overall cost of a project. the areas covered by the Small Grants detailed consideration. The Trust will Applicants must present costings in Scheme 2018. contact applicants for any further pounds sterling, but grants may be paid information or clarification it needs. in Sterling, US Dollars or Euros as best How to apply Trustees will review shortlisted proposals suits the recipient (at the exchange Please write your application in and make a final decision at their rate prevailing on the date of transfer). accordance with the attached outline meeting in April. The Trust will inform Recipients will bear the cost of any in English (with a Russian translation if applicants whether their proposals have conversion into local currency. desired) and send it by email to info@ been successful shortly after that, and Projects should normally be completed bearr.org before 1 February 2018. You make the outcome public once all grants within six months of receipt of the funds. should put in the subject line: SGS 2018 have been accepted. The BEARR Trust reserves the right to – bid. All applicants will therefore receive by commission independent evaluation of The application should be no more than email: any project funded. 2 pages. It should include information • an acknowledgment of receipt of The BEARR Trust does not give grants for about your organisation and any partner their application; organisation(s), and the nature and equipment. • notification of whether or not they objectives of your project, as detailed in Please download: have been awarded a grant. the Application Outline. SGS Application Outline Please feel free to ask for clarifications Applications of more than 2 pages will before you submit your application. You SGS Guidelines and Tips not be considered. See Application can write to [email protected] in English or SGS Checklist Guidelines and Tips to avoid other Russian. (These can all be found on the widespread mistakes which could make The BEARR Trust Small Grants Scheme BEARR.org website) your application not eligible for funding. 2018 is funded by grants from Just Trust and other donors. Reports on projects funded through last year’s Small Grants Scheme can be found on page 11 and page 12 2 BEARR News No 70, January 2018 HIV in Russia and Ukraine How HIV became a catastrophe in Russia and Ukraine Dr Ulla Pape, University of Bremen n recent years, we have not heard so much about HIV and Newly registered cases of HIV infec�on among IAIDS. In most countries, the epidemic seems to be under Ukrainian ci�zens (1996-2016) control. In contrast to the 1980s and the early 1990s, being 25000 HIV-positive is no longer a death sentence. With the right medical treatment and care, people with HIV can live a full life. 20000 And this does not only hold true for the rich countries of 15000 the world. In resource-poor environments, too, the global 10000 fight against the epidemic has made considerable progress. 5000 Worldwide, new infection rates are declining. At the UN General 0 Assembly in 2015, Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon announced 19961997199819992000200120022003200420052006200720082009201020112012201320142015 2016 that the world had delivered on halting and reversing the HIV 1 and AIDS epidemic. As part of the Sustainable Development Officially registered HIV cases in the RF, 1987-2014 Goals, UNAIDS has now set the new objective of ‘ending the (based on data from the Russian Federal AIDS Center) epidemic by 2030’ (UNAIDS, 2016). Despite all difficulties and 1,000,000 900,000 persistent global inequalities regarding access to life-saving 800,000 treatment, the global response to the epidemic is thus on the 700,000 600,000 right track. 500,000 400,000 300,000 Global number of AIDS-related deaths, new HIV infections, 200,000 and people living with HIV (1990-2015) 100,000 0 3.5 million 3.47 million 36.7 million 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 35 million 1996 3 million New HIV infections 1987-1995 Newly registered cases Cumula�ve registered cases globally People living 30 million (Y-axis on the left) with HIV globally 2.5 million (Y-axis on the right) 25 million Understanding vulnerability 2 million 2 million 2.1 million 20 million A suitable framework for understanding HIV vulnerability has 1.5 million 15 million been developed by Barnett and Whiteside in their publication 1.1 million AIDS in the 21st Century. Disease and Globalization (2006). 1 million 10 million AIDS-related deaths globally Barnett and Whiteside argue that vulnerability manifests itself (Y-axis on the left) 0.5 million 5 million at different levels, including the individual, group, community 0 0 and societal level. An individual may suffer from the adverse 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 effects of HIV infection due to health limitations, societal (see footnote) marginalisation and stigma. Societies may be vulnerable to HIV/ AIDS as they face a decline in their workforce and an increase in One region, however, stands out as not following this overall public spending as a result of the epidemic. Poverty and social positive trend: In Eastern Europe and Central Asia (EECA – the inequality facilitate the spread of HIV and in many cases also official term for the former Soviet countries in international hamper a society’s ability to respond to the epidemic. public health), the HIV epidemic continues to rise rapidly. According to Barnett and Whiteside, each country setting Between 2010 and 2015, the region saw a 57 per cent constitutes a specific risk environment which includes all factors increase in annual new HIV infections, with Russia and Ukraine that facilitate the transmission of HIV in a given context. By accounting for approximately 90 per cent of all cases in the comparing HIV/AIDS epidemics in many countries of the world, region (Avert 2017). This raises the question of why EECA they identified two main variables that determine how rapidly countries, and in particular Russia and Ukraine, have failed to the infection spreads: (1) the overall level of wealth, and (2) confront the HIV epidemic effectively. the degree of social cohesion in society. In general, prosperous countries are better prepared to confront HIV/AIDS due to the more advanced capacities of their health care systems and 1 Data source for the first graph: UN AIDS (via www.aidsinfoonline. higher levels of individual assets and coping strategies. Even org. The data visualization is available at OurWorldinData.org. more decisive than a society’s economic wealth, however, is Licensed under CC-BY-SA by the author Max Roser. the extent of social cohesion. Societies with a low level of social The other two graphs are by the author.