 We were really excited to bring the Harm Reduction International Conference to Portugal because the whole world still looks to the reforms that Portugal made 20 years ago. We're almost at the anniversary when the law passed in 1999. So this is one of the largest international gatherings of harm reductionists ever. We have slightly more than 1,200 people with us. My last count was 87 countries around the world. Portugal in the late 80s and 90s was experiencing skyrocketing rates of hepatitis C and HIV. 20 years later, after decriminalisation, it has one of the lowest rates of blood-borne viruses and of drug-related deaths in Europe. I do appreciate having all these marvellous people here. We, as APDES co-hostors, we are very happy to have this opportunity but we still need to push further for what's missing. After some time in which we have discussed the assistive consumption, we will be supporting together with the Ministry of Health and the NGOs in the city, a mobile unit that will assist consumption. This is a major event for us. I think it's fantastic in Portugal that CASO, the network of people who use drugs in Portugal, are consulted with in the formation of law and policy that relates to their community and they continue to be consulted. I think it's very exciting that they've been awarded quite rightly during the conference. We have this kind of paradox. You know, since the beginning, you are okay to buy, it kills a certain amount, but where do you buy things? You know, they don't fall from the sky and you have to go to places where the environment may be violent and you don't know what you're using. Here at the conference we also have drug checking so people can bring their substances and we're going to do like colorimetric tests and TLC tests in order to look for adulterants. On the 31st of August, the overall awareness day, we also opened heroin smoking rooms in Oslo and Bergen. We are now forming the heroin clinics that we've opened in our two largest cities and in the end of the year we will start discussing how the decriminalization policy will look like. Home reduction now is the law in France and also consumption rooms so we hopefully will open a consumption room in Marseille later this year or maybe early next year. La Sala is the first program for women who inject drugs to offer a safe space for the woman. Women who inject drugs in Mexico face a lot of base gender violence, sexual assaults, so they need these safe spaces. Over 10,300 Canadians died of opioid-related deaths between 2016 and 2018. And within the 15 years of insight, the first of these consumption sites being available to the drug-using community, there has never been an overdose-related death. Not there and not at the pure-led overdose prevention sites either. We worked with Vancouver's drug-using community to start our tablet and injectable opiate agonist therapy programs, or IOT. To date, there have been no overdoses inside of our program. It's an interesting moment because everybody kind of talks about Canadian drug policy very positively, but yet when we're in the middle of it right now, it doesn't feel very positive. And so right now is a bit of a difficult moment. We're pushing very, very hard to try to keep all the services we've established open and we're trying very, very hard to still keep on expanding because we need a full response to the overdose crisis because it's been very, very hard. Over the past four years, we've actually seen quite a surprising stagnation in harm reduction services. In the six years prior to that, we saw a steady increase and that's quite alarming. Programs are closing and withdrawing your funds of donors is a big threat for harm reduction in our region. Without decriminalization, all our investment in HIV response doesn't work. Two awards were given to organizations and individuals from our region. How does it make you feel? It's better to not have awards but to have good drug policy and people out of prisons. But that's a very big honor to recognize the role which Andrew Wilcoff Foundation played in developing and sustaining, maintaining harm reduction services in Moscow and in the Russian Federation. From heart to heart, we need your support. Thank you. Thank you. And for us as an association, we are very worried about the life of Andrei Yoravoy from Ukraine. In August last year, when Andrei was crossing a checkpoint in Krasnodon, Rayon, he was detained and his 10-day stock of medically prescribed buprenorphine hydrochloride was confiscated. Andrei was subsequently charged with high-scale drug trafficking and earlier this year, sentenced to long-term imprisonment. I'm from Afghanistan and we are the number one producer and number one user of drugs. And then the challenge is that it's only HIV-based framework of harm reduction in Afghanistan. Civil society are not functioning as they're supposed to and then they are faking data, they are not meeting people. For example, in-country coordination meeting of global fund representation of drug trafficking. How do you feel at this conference? Is there any message you will take home? The key message, people before politics, that's a quite strong message for me to bring to Indonesia. And we take one of our parliament members to attend this harm reduction conference and we have made an appointment to raise these people before politics voice to Indonesian parliament. And I really like the theme this year because what we are experiencing in the Philippines is the reversal of that theme. The Philippines or the Philippine situation is what happens when you put politics before people. This conference gives us the space to breathe because we are very few in the Philippines and we need all the international support that we can get from this conference. Often people who come from the global south feel that the global south is always learning from the global north. I think we also have teachings to give as well. In South Africa in our opiate substitution therapy program we have a higher retention rates than the global norm by far. It's my first time in such a big conference and it's really opened my eyes and it gives me tingles to see that people are concerned about people who use drugs. Every time the harm reduction community comes together it's quite special because it's our shared belief in putting people before politics in social justice and health services. It's always good to come to this conference because we are a family and I meet a lot of brothers and sisters and I'm happy.