Varshetz, May 10-12, 2019
From May 10th trough 12th in Varshetz, BFPA held a working meeting under the “My Body, my rights” project, funded as a part of the global “MSD for Mothers” programme. Hosts and speakers at the meeting were Dr. Radosveta Stamenkova, Ventzislav Kirkov and Boyan Mladenov form the BFPA team in Sofia, and the participants were the local project coordinators, health mediators and social workers from the project locations: Yambol – the villages of Kukorevo, Hadjidimitrovo, Veselinovo and Zavoy; Montana – Ogosta and Kosharnik districts; Sofia –Fakulteta and Filipovci districts. During the working meeting were discussed theoretical and real practice cases from field work with representatives of marginalized groups on topics like hygiene, health messages and campaigns, STI prevention, family planning and contraception. The people working in the project locations shared their experience from this and preceding projects about field work with marginalized groups, they discussed what are the challenges and the most successful approaches for achieving the best results. Peter Tzvetanov, coordinator of project activities in Montana, presented a memorable educational session on self-help groups and his colleagues from Montana and Yambol re-enacted some interesting practical cases. Their colleagues from Sofia put up for discussion theoretical situations that may arise during work.
During the last day the topic of discussion was the elaboration of materials, explaining the point of the project activities to target groups. The discussion was about which product would be easier to understand and would have the biggest impact as far as project sustainability is concerned – printed, visual or promotional. Also part of the discussion was creating a mobile application which is foreseen in the project plan. As a conclusion of the meeting an action plan was elaborated.
The informal interaction in between and in the evenings after the work modules helped with coordination and sharing practical experience among the three location teams as much as the discussions during the modules themselves. We expect eagerly new meetings in the project locations as well as sharing the newly acquired experience. We have also promised that the entire teams will visit all three locations to see for themselves the conditions their colleagues are working in. We also hope for precious experience to come from the other two countries, participating in the project – Serbia and Romania.
