CCM members’ elections and functions

Within “Changes are possible. Act Now “project monthly TB group meeting was held on September 27th, 2018. The participants were 25, who were in TB ambulatory treatment stage, survivors from TB, TB and TB/HIV positive patients.

At the end of 2018 in Armenia will be Country Coordinating Mechanisms (CCMs) members elections which has been managing by Global Fund. With regard to selection and nomination of TB and HIV community representatives, the NGO carries out consistent functions in its everyday activities and the main theme of this meeting was also dedicated to the upcoming CCM elections. PPAN’s president and vice president, who have been members of the CCM since 2007 in details presented CCM Policy, CCM Code of Ethical Conduct for CCM Members and funding for its implementation. The task is how should HIV positive person and TB ex-patient become a representative of community, participate in elections, take part in selection procedures and list in CCM’s activities. The main goal is to present TB, HIV community problems by the community representatives in CCM sessions and get solutions from the decision makers.

Chain of training sessions will be conducted till the final selection stage of TB and HIV community representatives which will ensure that the CCM representative will be nominated by his/her proposal and choice.

In the second part of the meeting a discussion format was implemented by the moderator of the project coordinating body. In the working schedule of “Changes are possible. Act Now ” project has been including training with representatives of mass media on covering TB issues. Prior to the Mass Media training, media representatives asked questions which they would like to address to TB patients and those who have survived from TB. More than a dozen questions were addressed to the attendees, which allowed reporters to identify issues related to stigma/discrimination, difficulties during treatment and social status vulnerability. The received responses already provided to journalists and will be targeted of identifying and addressing real problems of TB in country.