Bridging the Gaps 2 - PWUD project South Africa The main drugs of choice in South Africa are alcohol, cannabis, heroin and methamphetamine. Methamphetamine is locally known as tik. Most heroin is smoked mixed with cannabis, a popular mix called whoonga, cocktail or nyope. Heroin injection, however, has been increasing in recent years. Harm reduction programmes were introduced in South Africa only in 2014, focusing on PWID. South Africa counts with a progressive legal framework around drug policies, supporting a harm reduction approach. Nevertheless, and despite being considered a middle-income country, government funding for harm reduction is still very limited. Moral issues around drugs play an important role in this disparity. With the help of Bridging the Gaps Program, in 2 years’ time 3 Needles and Syringe Programmes (NSP) for People who Inject Drugs (PWID) were built and developed in 3 key-cities (Cape Town, Durban and Pretoria). Some of the activities offered by the programmes are HIV prevention and testing, needle and syringe distribution, drop in centres, and referral to other services. On the advocacy side, Mainline supports the development of two recently born regional drug users’ networks, documentation of human rights violation towards PWUD, media articles on human rights for PWUD and national events to debate drug policies. One excellent example of such an event is the RUN 2016 – SA Drug Policy Week – link: http://www.sadrugpolicyweek.com/. As a result of advocacy efforts, 3 new Opiate Substitution Treatment (OST) pilots will start in 2017 in Durban (Kwazulu Natal), Cape Town (Western Cape) and Pretoria (Gauteng). To support this, Mainline recently delivered a training on OST to South African outreach workers, together with our local partners. Training focused on understanding the medical aspects of OST and possibilities of psychosocial assistance for OST clients. Read more about the training here: http://english.mainline.nl/posts/show/10139/training-on-opiate-substitution-treatment-in-south-africa Bridging the Gaps works with a Theory of Change approach. A Theory of Change is a description of a list of events that is expected to lead to a particular desired outcome. It is a visualization how change is believed to happen. In 2016, representatives of the PWUD community developed a Theory of Change that consists of short-,medium, and long term outcomes. The specified Theory of Change of the PWUD project in South Africa describes how we plan to realize sustainable funding and improved access to inclusive community-based services (including harm reduction and OST); consideration of PWUD as legitimate community members and a strong national PWUD network. Through innovation and by building on previous work, we will strengthen civil society organisations’ ability to: 1. We facilitate community development - Training students and healthcare professionals on harm reduction, rights and policies. Building national PWUD network to improve human rights and health of PWUD. 2. We advocate for the continuously strengthening of services and upholding human rights - Documenting human rights violations and evidence-informed advocacy. Assessing the needs and risks of street-based PWUD to inform advocacy and programming. 3. We deliver inclusive, rights-based and gender sensitive services - Providing accessible health services for PWUD, for example through outreach and the supply of sterile needles and syringes and other harm reduction commodities. - Providing psychosocial services to PWUD through established drop in centres and safe spaces. - Designing and distributing harm reduction IEC materials for PWUD, including stimulant use, smoking, snorting and injecting drugs. - Coordinating a structural clean-up. - Facilitating capacity building of outreach workers and knowledge exchange. 4. We foster global and in-country process and partnerships that reinforce results - Strengthening relationships, networks and processes with government departments and the civil society drug policy network. - Establishing and participating in a ‘Friends of PWUD’ structure that helps capacitate and support PWUD networks until they are self-sustaining. - Establishing relationships with civil society and encouraging the development of harm reduction services and advocacy for effective rights based drug policies. People who Use Drugs