The main objective of the SUNFLOWER project is to generate, collect and disseminate good practices, information and data on HIV/AIDS prevention methods among young people that will be used by national administrations, professionals and other parties from new EU Member states that work in the field of HIV prevention. The SUNFLOWER consortium consists of 11 partners from 9 countries (Bulgaria, the UK, Germany, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, the Czech Republic) as it identifies innovative strategies to promote safer sex among adolescents and high risk populations, including access to targeted services, and improved awareness of sexually transmitted infections and their prevention.
SUNFLOWER aims at providing strong basis for monitoring health determinants in this critical field. Knowledge acquired through this project will be disseminated above all in the New EU Member States: Bulgaria, Romania, Slovak Republic, Czech Republic and Lithuania represent the countries partners which will be assigned some of the fundamental project activities. In addition, the project results will be disseminated in Croatia by our local collaborating partner.
A further general objective will be to create an European Network focused on HIV/AIDS prevention among young people most at risk (men having sex with men (MSM), migrant populations, injecting drug users, sex-workers, and others groups), and to help them solving problems connected to their lifestyle that highly turn out to be risky factors for the spread of the HIV infection among young people.
The idea for setting up a network came from the successful partnership in the last few years between the partnering cities, which started during a previous project managed by ANLAIDS. All partners under the SUNFLOWER project (regional government structures, universities, scientific groups and NGOs) have been working in the sphere of HIV/AIDS for a long time and have the necessary expertise to achieve these main objectives.
Specific objectives:
1. To identify good practices in the SUNFLOWER partner countries in the area of HIV/AIDS prevention – this includes not only the activities of the project partners but also of other institutions in the country working in the area of HIV/AIDS prevention. Recommendations for carrying out campaigns in the area of HIV have been drawn up on the basis of these practices.
2. Innovative European prevention campaign: organized by young people the campaign reflects their lifestyle, behaviour, way of thinking, attitude and strivings.
3. Exchange of good practices among the new EU member states according to the needs on national level and in accordance with the environment analysis. These good practices will be used by the government institutions and the NGOs working in the field of HIV prevention. The rich experience of the partners from the “old” EU member states will be transferred and adapted to the local conditions in the “new” EU member states.
4. Experimenting with new prevention models – introduction of innovative practices and collection of data, information and characteristics of the prevention methods.
The SUNFLOWER project is co-funded by the Programme of Community Action in the field of Public Health 2007 - European Commission - Executive Agency for Health and Consumers (PHEA).
