BFPA Annual Retreat Meeting 2018 – The New coming 25
Panagyurishte, July 13-15, 2018
Besides the pleasure of meeting, discussing and having fun together with our branch managers, some of our most prominent and active volunteers, representatives of BFPA’s Board and key partners of the Association, at the 2018 Annual retreat meeting we put the start of a lot of activities for the present and upcoming programmatic period and also shared outcomes of successfully implemented and finalized activities. We called the meeting “The New coming 25” – it is the first year after our 25th anniversary. BFPA’s Executive Director Dr. Radosveta Stamenkova reported the activities for 2018 until now and outlined the forthcoming ones, the perspectives from the viewpoint of the volunteers, the Board and partners were discussed, we tried to foresee the challenges in connection with our future activities in 2018-2019 and their eventual success, which usually brings on more work, and we still find it is good news.
For the Management board, staff, volunteers and supporters of the Bulgarian Family Planning and Sexual Health Association (BFPA) it is a great sadness to share that the first (and only so far) Honorary President of BFPA Professor Todor Chernev passed away on June 4 2018 the age of 72. He was one of the most outstanding gynecologists in the country, with many awards and achievements, including the national “Golden Hands” award. Besides all his different duties and important causes he was supporting, the Professor , as we called him was one of the founders of BFPA and was President of its Management Board for more than a decade. Professor Chernev remained a reproductive health consultant of our clinic in Sofia for almost 25 years and was active in the work for providing access to health services for underserved and vulnerable groups. He will be missed a lot by his wife, two sons, granddaughter, relatives and friends. The short video below reflects just part of his initiatives and successes. RIP! You will be remembered.
Training of Trainers on Health Education
Sofia, May 18-19, 2018
The Bulgarian Family Planning and Sexual Health Association (BFPA) conducted on May 18-19, 2018 the first for this year training of trainers on health and sexuality education „About the Shared Knowledge”. High school students from 8th to 11th grade from Sofia, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Stara Zagora, Troyan and Gorna Oryahovitza were introduced to topics connected with prevention of reproductive health and effective ways for delivering health messages to their peers. The participants were from schools with different profile – entrepreneurship, math, natural science, informatics, humanities…, and what united them was the expectation to gain new knowledge and make new friends. „How can one understand that he/she is suffering from Syphilis?”, „Which of the sources of information are credible?” and „Is it possible an person living with HIV to have life expectancy as long as an uninfected one?” – were some of the questions during the sessions.
BFPA presents its newest edition: a leaflet on Fake news
Sofia, May 17 2018
A new edition with relevant information to recognize fake news was published by the Bulgarian Family Planning and Sexual Health Association (BFPA). Author of the text is the journalist Polina Paunova and of the drawings – the artist Kremena Koeva. The leaflet has a focus to health, but treats fake news and disinformation as a whole. It is targeting young people, but is useful and appropriate for all age groups. „Fake News draw attention. They are scandalous. Shocking. Spicy. They are often about sex. Or about money. Or about death. Or about the three of the above together. Fake news are “grandiose”, “shocking” and reveal “a secret”. They are presented in a way that make you feel lost or shake your understanding of the world, on politics, medicine, authorities and celebrities. ... they discredit people, sometimes even entire countries. They do not have authors, but use names. They do not use factology, but simulate authenticity…“
Learning Action Partnership – Review of Opportunities for Future Collaborations
Sofia, May 16, 2018
New meeting of the Learning Action Partnership (LAP) was held on May 16, 2018 in Sofia. The participants made a review of what was done in the period between the last meeting up to now and discussed new working opportunities for the network. Ventzislav Kirkov, BFPA Program Manager and President of the Bulgarian Platform for International Development (BPID) presented the work of the Platform in the context of the Bulgarian Presidency of Council of EU, focusing his presentation at priority 16 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Different editions and initiatives of the LAP members were presented at the meeting. A proposal for collaboration with a Resource Centre against Sexual Violence in Concordia University in Montreal was discussed. The conception on working of the recently established ad hoc coalition on prevention of domestic violence and violence against women was presented shortly. LAP members were invited to apply for participation in the training for building narrative skills “Changing the narrative” organized by BFPA in October 2018 in Sofia with trainers form Columbia University.
The Bulgarian Association for Family Planning and Sexual Health (BFPA) presented the results of a nationally representative survey conducted by KANTAR. The study took place in August 2022, among a sample of 836 people from the adult population and analyzed the measures that would positively affect the birth rate.
On November 11, 2022, the final conference of the ARIE project was held in Sofia. The project is supported by the Erasmus+ Sport program, led by the long-standing Italian partner of BFPA ANLAIDS – Lombardia. The rest of the participating organizations are from Bulgaria, Greece, Lithuania, Romania and Slovenia. The activities are aimed at people living with HIV (PLHIV), the goal of the project is to develop and introduce a fitness program and an activity protocol for people living with HIV. In Bulgaria the project was coordinated by Boyan Mladenov from the BFPA team. Among the participants of the conference were health specialists, professors from medical universities, NGO partners, representatives of the target group. From the Bulgarian side the most outstanding was the presentation of Prof. Radka Argirova “HIV,Covid and Monkeypox - what more we have to know” The project aims to promote physical activity in the form of personalized guidelines among people between the ages of 18 and 50 who are living with HIV and who are on treatment, offering an innovative fitness protocol to engage them in moderate physical activity. This is the first project in Europe specifically targeting people living with HIV and fitness to promote a healthy lifestyle and add fitness protocols to HIV therapy.
In the last months of 2022 the partners of the YVYC project, together with experts and young people, developed recommendations for regional policy recommendations for improvement of health and social systems and SRHR services for young people after the Covid 19 pandemic. The recommendations are targeting decision-makers at international and national institutions. They were presented in the European Parliament on October 26, 2022 by young advocates and experts, with the support of MEP Fred Matic. Three BFPA representatives - Victoria Nikolova, Venelin Stoychev and Pavlina Filipova participated in the EP meeting.
Panagyurishte, July 13-15, 2018
Todor Chernev, 1945-2018
Sofia, May 18-19, 2018
Sofia, May 17 2018
Sofia, May 16, 2018
