With a number of activities within the national online ANTI-AIDS campaign “Love Safely” the Bulgarian Red Cross Youth marked World AIDS Day. Due to the anti-epidemic measures in the country, the annual campaign is already conducted digitally. In 2020, young volunteers were given the opportunity to come up with various initiatives on social networks.
The idea of the young people from two regions was interesting – they interviewed guest in e-meeting – the choreographer, actor and singer Ivo Dimchev, who has been diagnosed as HIV-positive for more than 10 years. And аlsо posters with information on HIV/AIDS prevention were also prepared, which can be seen on BRCY Facebook pages. There were many more games, surveys, demonstrations on the proper use of condoms, collages, online lectures and presentations in many regions – all done by young people for their peers.
The Bulgarian Red Cross Youth is traditionally a partner of the Ministry of Health in the National ANTI-AIDS campaign, and with a number of different and interesting activities at the national and regional levels young people act on occasion of February 14 – St.Valentine’s Day, the third Sunday in May – International AIDS Candlelight Memorial Day and December 1 – World AIDS Day.
The prevention of risky sexual behavior was also the topic of the first (in the context of the pandemic of COVID-19) E-academy for volunteers, where in the health module as lecturers took part the Director of the Bulgarian Family Planning and Sexual Health Association and also a Professor-Virologist from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.
Assessing our experience, BRC experts are included in the working groups of the Ministry of Health for the preparation of national programs for prevention and control of HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted infections and tuberculosis (2021-2025). The health promotion expert in the BRCY Directorate is a member of the Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections at the Ministry of Health.
