The activities here below have been planned and implemented in 2009 (few activities are yet to be excuted). The activities are part of the two years project supported by the AIDSFONDS.

Weekly Festival at Helderheidsplein in Rotterdam

This activity is part of the project idea 'Close to you' which is under development.It is conducted as a pilot activity incollaboration with member organisations namely Stichting Boeing, Christian Youth and More Gospel.The yongesters (from these three organisations) have prepared and dispatched a youth style flyer:

Festival Grootmarkt-Groningen

This is an extension of the pilot activity "Festival Helderheidsplein in R'dam". We wanted to test this activity at one more place and scale the activity up as a best practice to reach the youth in the country in general. We were exploring the possibilities in this area. We have not succeded to realise this activity in that we could not find enthusiast partners in this area.

Expert Meeting Migrant organizations/communities against STI's and HIV/AIDS: 31 October 2009

The intention for a network meeting has been critically revised and re-designed to be an expert meeting. We wanted to explore, together with other concerned experts, issues such as the opportunities, threats and challenges in the field of HIV/AIDS for migrant communities, overcoming differences, increasing bargaining power/taking the lead in the specified field. The initial replanning of the network meeting was on September 25, 2009. But due to feed backs from partners and members it was replanned on Saturday 31 October 2009 with the same content. Weekends were argued to be more convinient for most of our target groups. Finally, the contents of the meeting is revised to become expert meeting rather than networking. This is for the very fact that the board sensed timely issues. The activity was successfully implemmented as heighlighted under the news.

Support/care weekend activity to people living with HIV/AIDS

There are indications that people living with this problem are distrusted often experiencing exclusion and stigma. Together with member patient organisations, the board of NAMIO would like to organise a care and comfort weekend for people living with HIV/AIDS and their partners. We do this as part of the training activity plans within the project supported by the AIDSFONDS.
Member patient organisations were approached and contents of the activity was designed on 11 June, 2009. This was done together with PWW, PAMA and POSETIVA Rotterdam. But latter the coordinator of PWW become sick. PWW was willing to take the lead in implementing the activity. This activity is not implemented due to personal situations of the stated partners,the vacation periods and overlap of activities by other organisations in the sector.

Close to you

The intetion is to intensify the awarness creation and prevention enthusiasm against HIV/AIDS and STI's under the migrant sub community in th Netherlands. The goal is to fight stigma/ taboo and to limit the spread of hiv/aids and other STI's among the target communities and the general public. Strategies will include aggressive sensitization campaigns intended to unite all the migrant forces in the fight against STI's and HIV/AIDS. The whole intention is to employ diverse actors and methods/strategies and activities. Pilot activities are being tested at different locations and a task force consisting of some representatives of member organisations is working on the details of this project.

AIDS free generation

his is a long-term project. Our vision behind this project idea is 'there should come a generation which talks of HIV/AIDS as history not as a problem!'. Hence, the project is being wourked out with the active participation of the youths. We need to start with a good understanding of how the youth perceives sex and love, say the ambassadors of the youth to NAMIO who would like to be referred as 'fresh crew'. According to the youths, the young generation percieves sex as a good which has nothing to do with love. Sex and love are not linked for the new generation. Disconnecting love and sex can result in irrisponsible sexual behaviour. What do the youths want from sex eventually? Is it only fun/sexual satisfaction or do they want family and family life? Hence, we would like to research on the youths' perception of sex and love. The task force is working on a research idea intitled "Sex viz. love".
The project is very broad. It aims at sensitization of Hiv/aids and edifying responsible healthy sexual behaviour under the migrant youths in The Netherlands. There is lack of clear info and knowledge about hiv/aids and other STI's among this target group. The yongesters themselves have reflected that the classical outreach activities are not effective under the youth. There are important feedbacks from them such as "all that is done for us, but without us, is against us".
Secondly, to realise the long-term vision of the project, we need to go beyond the youth and beyond sensatisation of the problem. The general public, the government, scientists and politicians need to effectively respond against the diseases. We need also to work out effective media and lobbing activities to hearten the will and participation of all the stakholders. There is a task force which is working on a project idea entitled "Lobbying and advocacy". We will consult this task force in streaming up plausible campaigning activities aiming at public agitation against hiv/aids.
The Sex viz. love research work is just started with the explaratory phase: diagnosing available background information (published and unpublished), informal interviews (both the youth and relevant organisations). Cyber facilities such as YOUTUBE, HIVES, MYSPACE, etc. will also be employed during the exploratory phase of the research. Our fresh crew will start with a youtube blog which will be regularly updated with weekly diaries of the taskforce and the fresh crew.

Lobbying and Advocacy for the better contributions of migrant organizations

Drawing the attention of politicians, policy/decision makers and donors to the STI's and HIV/AIDS crisis among migrants in the Netherlands is crucial in compelling them to demonstrate greater political will and financial commitment in responding to the needs of the target groups of NAMIO. Important political communities and institutions/organisations are identified. A task force composed of member organisations is working on this project idea. Pilot activities will also be implemented as part of the project development process. This is crucial project activity and we are drawing experienced and capable people to involve and carry it out.

Ramadan and HIV/AIDS

This is an ongoing activity. It is a special approach intended to reach the most conservative and closed sub communities. As it is reported with the annual report 2008, the approach is proved to be effective.It has been repeated this year too.

X-mas and HIV/AIDS

This is a parallel activity to Ramadan and HIV/AIDS. It has been attempted for the first time this year. This activity targeted specifically the Catholic and Orthodox Christianity practitioners. We planned to start with the Ethiopian Tewahido Orthodox Christian communities in The Netherlands. We have established contact with the main priest of the church. A formal request with an activity plan is submitted to the church officials. Together with stichting Gobez, we made consistent attempts to realize the activity with this church. It has not been a success. Hence, we have contacted an evangelical church. Initial talks have been conducted and fellow up steps are planned together with this other church (Stichting Europe harvest mission).

NAMIO national congress Dec. 2009

It is the intention of the board to organise an annual congress at the end of ever year. As usual, we do review of activities and plans of NAMIO and that of its members. The congress focuses on evaluating the performance of NAMIO sofar and in the future. Hence, the theme of the congress is 'looking backward and forward'. This was not implemented in December 2009 due to different reasons. It is replanned to be conducted in February this year.

Digital Newsletter: News NAMIO [Dec. 2009]

The board planned also to prepare and dispatch the first electronic newsletter of the association at the end of the year. This is yet under preparation. Member organisations will have the opportunity to cummiunicate anything they have with the newsletter. The tentative name of the newsletter is NAMIO NEWS.

World AIDS day: Close to you with Pathé

Last year we wanted to actively participate in the World AIDS day with the theme close to you with Pathé. Pathé is a movie company. Customers of such a business are very often the youths. We wanted our enthusiast volunteers to tell their fellow people that: close to them watching movies, etc. is a possibility to start sexual frendship, but they need to be aware of sexual sickness such as HIV/AIDS. We wanted them also to to tell the youthes that close to them may be someone with HIV/AIDS and/or other STI's, take care of hurting him/her with tittle-tattle and other actions: he rather deserves your support and care. Unfortunately, this was not realised due to logistic problems.

PR activities

Attempt has been made to prepare various flyers, a poster and business cards. We planned also to renovate the website with features and presentation styles targeting the youth. Some products have been already produced and some are still on going.