Udruga za pomoc mladima HELP - Split

HELP was established in Split, Croatia in1992, as an NGO for helping youth and people with drug related problems. The residence of HELP is in the city of Split, but the field of activities spans wider. We run activities in several other cities and islands in the county of Dalmatia, as well as in other Northern and Southern Croatian counties. There are 11 fool time job positions and several external experts, as well as around 40 volunteers. Our budget per year is about 200.000,00-250.000,00 eur. The main source of funding is Croatian ministry of health. But we are funding by other Croatian Ministries, too, as well as by EU. All our activities are running in two ways through two main parallels programs: Youth Information Center (YIC) and Harm Reduction (HR). The main goal of Harm Reduction (HR) is HIV/AIDS prevention. In the frame of HR activities we try to reduce the harm caused by drug use or harm of the other high risk behaviors, particularly commercial sex work. The target group is population with high risk behavior; intravenous drug users (IDUs), commercial sex workers (CSW), and PLWHIV (people living with HIV/AIDS). Some of the activities of HR are: Needle Exchange service, out - reach work, sending IDUs to treat in therapeutic communities in country and abroad, Voluntary Counseling and Testing on HIV and hepatitis (VCT), distributing educational materials, providing condoms free of charge, raising public awareness about HIV/AIDS, helping PLWHIV in everyday life struggle, providing education, trainings etc. The main target group of Youth Information Center (YIC) is youth in general (age 14-30). Through YIC HELP try to enhance the quality of youth life. The main goal is to enable young people to take more responsible and more active role in the society. To make them capable for such role, it is necessary to inform and educate them. Since 2003 we are organizing Youth –peer education in the field of reproductive health, and every year around 500 youth (mainly adolescents) attend educations. Through the YIC, we try to collect and distribute as much useful information as possible, without political, religious or other influence. Also we try to develop youth mobility, enhance non formal education and intercultural understanding, as well as stimulate volunteer’s engagement among youth on local and international level. To be more successful in reaching those goals, HELP try to provide as more as possible different local and international opportunities created for youth involvement and non-formal learning. The result of such engagement is a large number of youth actively involved in volunteering activities on local and international level (EVS). In May 2011 at a high-level awards ceremony during European Youth week 2011 in Antwerp, one of Help’s volunteer was one of the winners in the category “Inclusive society”. Our main partners are Croatian Institutions for public healt, Schools, partners from other EU countries.