We are pleased to announce that The International Charitable Foundation “Alliance for Public Health” is organizing a competition for the media “Drug Addiction vs. Drug Policy: problems and solutions in Ukraine” for the second year in a row. We invite the journalists of national and regional mass media to take part in the competition for the best journalistic materials on the drug policy and protection of the rights of people who use drugs/patients on substitution maintenance therapy (SMT). The activities will include visits to the regions of Ukraine and training events for the journalists.

The application can be submitted by the authors/editors or editorial teams who have published (or aired) their news/articles/videos/posts from January 1st to November 12th, 2021.

The All-Ukrainian competition for the media was created to inform the people of Ukraine about modern prevention and treatment techniques for people who use drugs with an emphasis on the peculiarities of introduction and expansion of SMT in medical institutions, increasing access for people who use drugs to comprehensive services of the national program on HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C prevention, tuberculosis, problems of observance of the human rights.

The urgency of reforming and liberalization of the national repressive drug policy of Ukraine, as well as the decriminalization for people who use drugs on practical successful examples of such work in Ukraine and effective practices of developed countries, are the priority tasks of the competition.

The jury, which will include well-known Ukrainian editors and journalists, as well as public activists and representatives of the Alliance, will determine one winner in each of the following categories:

  • Television and radio
  • Printing press
  • Online edition
  • Blogging

The winners of the journalist competition will receive diplomas and incentive prizes. In addition, this competition provides individual awards for initiative materials, such as a series of texts/articles/videos/posts, the creation of special projects, the collaboration of several editions, and so on.

Requirements for competitive works:

  • Texts/articles/videos/posts can be prepared in any language of national minorities with a translation into Ukrainian or Russian.
  • Publications should reflect Ukrainian realities and, preferably, contain references to the best world practices, demonstrate the real state of affairs with an emphasis on ways to solve these problems.
  • The jury will give preference to well-reasoned texts/articles/videos/posts, which prove the need to expand the access of people who use drugs to substitution maintenance therapy and promote their decriminalization on the examples of the best world practices. The focus should be on countering organized drug trafficking, not on stigma or discrimination against people who use drugs.
  • The publications may also cover certain aspects, such as women who use drugs and its taboos in Ukrainian society, changes in the drug scene and adolescent addiction with an emphasis on synthetic drugs, and so on.
  • All materials submitted by media representatives must be original and free of plagiarism.
  • One author (editorial team) can submit an unlimited number of works to the competition.
  • All contestants must enter information about the posted material in the registration form at the link: https://forms.gle/6xRHwdCU2f67o23s8

The deadline for submission of materials is November 12th, 2021 (6 p.m).

 Please visit our website for more information https://aph.org.ua/uk/golovna/

and FB-page https://www.facebook.com/AlliancePublicHealth.

he best materials will be published on the information resources of the ICF “Alliance for Public Health”, so when applying to the competition, the authors automatically allow such publications.

The Second All-Ukrainian competition for the media “Drug Addiction vs. Drug Policy: problems and solutions in Ukraine” is part of the project “Accelerating Progress in Reducing the Burden of Tuberculosis and HIV in Ukraine” implemented by ICF “Alliance for Public Health” with the support of The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.