The Drug Utilisation Response Network Seychelles (DURNS), the national peer-based organisation that seeks to promote the health and defend the rights of drug users, organised an empowerment training session for people who inject drugs.

The one-day training session, held last Friday at the Eden Bleu Hotel, was organised in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and other partner NGOs to commemorate World Aids Day on Wednesday December 1,2021.

The training was mostly for DURNS members but some other non members retrieved from the streets and the ghettos also attended the training.

As the drug users are contributing to the spread of HIV, the training was to empower them on how to conduct and protect themselves to prevent the spread of HIV while being on the streets or in the ghetto.

It was also to empower them to act as peer counsellors for the prevention of the spread of HIV on the streets and in the ghetto.

The chairperson of DURNS, Joseph Banane, said that there could be an increase in prevalence in the spread of HIV and Hepatitis among the drug users, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic, given that more young people are doing drugs and the restriction measures prevented access to fresh needles among other health preventive items (condoms to sex workers), which have led to the sharing of needles. He added that the empowerment of drugs users will lead to a reduction in the spread of HIV and other diseases.

From the different facilitators, the participants learned about the prevention and harm reduction (health and sex education, reducing transmission; including mother to child transmission), treatment, stigmatisation and discrimination, rehabilitation.

This was followed by a panel discussion and the session ended with the presentation of certificates to the participants.

Source: Seychelles Nation