Brussels-Kyiv, June 1st 2022
The European AIDS Treatment Group (EATG) and Alliance for Public Health (APH) launch strategic cooperation focusing on Europe and Central Asia The aim is to set up an online training and capacity building platform for the upcoming cycle of EATG’s acclaimed STEP-UP project.
The STEP-UP Training Academy has been a flagship project of EATG since 2013. After five face-to-face cycles and one online, the new implementation of STEP-UP will be an online training platform created in collaboration with APH. Both the new format and the involvement of a partner organisation from the Eastern Europe and Central Asia (EECA) region aim to assure a wider reach of trainees from diverse settings.
“The focus of STEP-UP has always been to bring activists from across Europe and Central Asia together in view of building their capacities in a manner tailored to local and regional needs. We have witnessed that STEP-UP helps to empower a movement of new HIV activists. Since its inception, more than 120 graduates have benefitted from STEP-UP and some of them were awarded grants to implement small projects; we are proud of their success stories and their evolution” says Pieter Vanholder, Executive Director of EATG. “We are glad we teamed up with APH to build and implement a new cycle of STEP-UP in the format of a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), adapted to the new reality and flexible to adapt further to emerging needs.”
“We are extremely happy to announce our collaboration with EATG on STEP-UP” says Tetiana Deshko, Director of International Programs in Alliance for Public Health. “The gap in access to antiretroviral treatment is the major shortcoming of HIV response in EECA, with only 53% of those in need of treatment receiving it. As the war on Ukraine and migration have shown, patients’ and their communities’ initiative in proactively seeking treatment is the key to success in treatment initiation and adherence, wherever the patient is either stable or on the move. This collaboration with EATG makes our treatment approaches more integrated and person-centered. STEP-UP is an excellent project that not only provides comprehensive knowledge, it also supports community mobilisation and advocacy to deliver change.”
STEP-UP MOOC is a bilingual (English/Russian) training programme that combines 1) a self-paced e-learning approach using a cascade of trainings for networking, empowerment and advocacy with 2) a face-to-faceCommunity of Practice Workshop and 3) a system of sub-grants. It is targeted to people living with HIV/AIDS, health care providers, civil society representatives and other professionals who work in service delivery and/or advocacy to ensure universal access to combination prevention, HIV treatment and care. The MOOC will be designed by activists for activists, will be free of charge and accessible to everyone.
“Participation in the STEP-UP MOOC will not be based on any selection process, but on willingness to participate. As the contents and languages of the training will be specifically tailored to the needs of HIV activists in WHO Europe, we expect most participants to come from the HIV sector, thus having prior knowledge of HIV and related infections” comment the organisers.
STEP-UP MOOC is planned to be available online in January 2023.
Learn more about STEP-UP: https://www.eatg.org/projects/step-up/
Contacts:
Apostolos Kalogiannis, Communications Coordinator, EATG, apostolos.kalogiannis@eatg.org
Inna Gavrylova, PR & Communications Manager, Alliance for Public Health, gavrylova@aph.org.ua
This initiative has been independently developed by EATG, and was made possible through sponsorship from Gilead Sciences Europe Ltd. EATG acknowledges that Gilead Sciences Europe Ltd has not had any control or input into the structure or content of the initiative. The STEP-UP MOOC is implemented in collaboration with Alliance for Public Health.