The Small Grants Competition Results Within the Framework of ECOM’s Regional “Right to Health” Programme 2018

Projects aimed at strengthening the advocacy potential of insufficiently covered LGBT-subgroups - trans people, HIV+gays, bisexual men, and trans people, as well as MSM and trans sex-workers - that had been filed by public organisations and initiative groups from the Eastern European and Central Asian countries (Azerbaidzhan, Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Moldova, the Russian Federation, Tadzhikistan, Ukraine, and Estonia) were reviewed during the competition.

22 application were filed in total from Azerbaidzhan, Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Tadzhikistan, Ukraine, and Estonia.

Activities of the filed projects included educational events, including those aimed at strengthening the organisational development of the organisation, collecting data on the needs of the target groups; data collection on stigma, discrimination and human rights violations in the governmental sector; media-campaigns; meetings with governmental bodies and other decision-makers to advocate for the right to health to become accessible for the insufficiently covered subgroups of gays, bisexual men, other MSM, trans* people, and others.

As per the competition’s results, after having a group of independent experts evaluate the applications and having ECOM’s Steering Committee approve the conclusions, it was decided to uphold the applications of the following organisations and initiative groups:

ECOM’s Secretariat is thankful to all organisations that have filed their applications for the competition and hopes to achieve effective cooperation, partnership, and performance while working with the organisations the projects of which have been chosen to be supported.

The Eurasian Coalition on Male Health carries out the “Right to Health” programme, the aim of which is to increase the number of MSM and trans* people that have sustainable and constant access to the continuum of HIV-services in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

The main events of the programme on the regional level are realized by ECOM and on the state level, by five sub-recipients of the programme: Humanitarian NGO “New Generation” (Armenia), Republica Youth Public Organisation “Encounter” (Belarus), Equality Movement (Georgia), Public Association “Kyrgyz Indigo” (Kyrgyzstan) and Stronger Together, Association for Support of People Living with HIV (Macedonia).

Despite the fact that the main activities of the programme are being carried out in the aforementioned five countries, countries of the so-called ‘expanded involvement’ - Azerbaidzhan, Kazakhstan, Moldova, the Russian Federation, Tadzhikistan, Estonia, and Ukraine - also participate in the programme.

Representatives of the countries of the ‘prolonged list’ are involved in the programme as experts and as a resource for experience exchange and education, to provide technical support and are also invited to regional events on potential development and advocacy.