EVS Volunteering in Belgium 2012-2013

The European AIDS Treatment Group (EATG) is looking for a volunteer to support us with our communication work towards people living with HIV/AIDS and other stakeholders. The volunteers would be involved in projects to raise awareness about HIV in Europe, mainly among young communities.

EATG is a large network of activists; we regularly receive suggestions from our members for new projects and initiatives. Our members are activists that advocate for best access to HIV prevention, treatment and care across Europe. We develop projects for universal access to HIV medicines and prevention.

Volunteers would help us in our daily tasks; and collaborate and learn with our network of members and partners.

Our target group is people living with HIV and their supporters. The volunteers would work in a young and friendly environment in our office in Brussels and would be in contact with the HIV community in Europe on a daily basis (through contact with our members and partners in different European countries). Furthermore, the volunteer would be in contact with the public health community in Brussels and the main policy makers.

The volunteers would participate in actions in different European countries targeted at the most at risk groups for HIV transmission. E.g. projects aiming to decrease stigma and discrimination; developing strategies for testing of young people and early diagnosis of HIV; raising awareness and developing knowledge of young people on HIV related issues, as well as sexual health and other sexual transmitted diseases; disseminating information about European actitivites for HIV prevention.

EATG works with the most vulnerable populations to HIV transmission (migrants, drug users, sex workers, men having sex with men). We are often confronted by issues of stigma and discrimination and inequalities in different health systems across Europe, and our work aims to tackle these inequalities.

The scope of our work in the European region, however, our activities focus in Eastern Europe, where the HIV prevalence is higher then in other European countries.We consider the project environment challenging, as the volunteer would work with us mainly on HIV prevention among most vulnerable groups in Europe and namely in Eastern Europe.  

Tasks 

- Organisation of events, including trainings: logistic support, communication with participants and follow up. (e.g. attending workshops on HIV treatment and prevention in different countries; participating in AIDS conferences and supporting us with our exhbition/booths in conferences; organising actions and demonstrations related to HIV prevention and treatment) 

- Contributing to small projects on HIV prevention, treatment and care. (e.g. AIDS&Mobility, project that aims to develop mediator training among young migrant communities in Europe; COPE Continuous Patient Education, a mechanism to fund local organisation to translate and adapt publications about HIV and sexual transmitted diseases into different languages)

- Support implementation of EATG communication strategy (e.g. development of members relations, drafting articles and editing the newsletter, updating website, organisation of our library and databases, updating Facebook and Twitter page with main HIV news). 

- Other: drafting documents and performing small translations; support dissemination of information and media relations; representing the organisation in events. 

- Development of a project for the youth HIV community in Europe with impact at national scale.

Criteria

- good communication skills 

- interest in HIV/AIDS issues, or discrimination and social exclusion 

- motivation to share knowledge at national level and raise awareness on HIV prevention

Procedure

The EATG would like to cooperate with organisations working on anti-discrimination, equal opportunities, health and youth information. We are looking for volunteers with a strong interest on HIV/AIDS issues, or with a strong interest in learning more about HIV. Young people living with HIV and/or volunteers from different backgrounds and part of migrant or other communities vulnerable to HIV transmission are encouraged to apply, however, the most important would be to host someone willing to work with HIV positive people and learn about HIV treatment, independently of his/her background. The selection is based on the motivation to develop projects on HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care and to further disseminate information to his/her youth community back home. 

All our documents are written in English but our staff speak French and we would communicate in French and/or English. 

Project start date: 01/05/2012, project end date: 01/05/2013. 

Applications (CV and motivation letter) should be sent to analucia.cardoso@eatg.org until 23rd January, 2012.