 Good evening everyone. Welcome to our session and just to give you notice that we will be live online, so put on the best look. So we welcome you to our session right now. We would like to acknowledge and thank the traditional custodians of the land on which we meet today and we recognize the significance of the Birarung to traditional owners as a life source and a meeting place. We pay respect to the Bunaerung Bungurung and Wurundjeri Wurung people of the Eastern Collin Nation and we recognize their continued connection to the land and the waters of this beautiful place. We acknowledge that they never ceded sovereignty and we pay respect to the elders of the community and extend our recognition to their descendants. My name is Bani Sapondi. I am the new CEO of Okol and I welcome you to the session. I'm going to give you a brief overview of our event. Then we are going to allow our presenters to take the stage. After that, you are going to have the questions and we are also going to have our two members of parliament from Kenya who are going to give us a perspective on political leadership when it comes to supporting people who use drugs. So, harm reduction in Africa began around 2005-2006 and the first countries that began harm reduction by record is Mauritius and a lot of it began ad hoc by civil society. Then government took on as the programs went on. Since then we have seen Kenya, we have seen Tanzania, we have seen Burundi, we have seen South Africa, we have seen Uganda, we have seen Ghana, we have seen Lebanon and maybe some countries are just beginning, come on board. But even though we implement this, there are gains and challenges. We still see a lot of our poverty within our people, meaning the harm reduction programs are implemented in scarce environments. There's very little funding still. We have peer groups are not being supported. We have the whole continuum of harm reduction just being implemented halfway, such that you have the biomedical, not going hand in hand with the behavioral aspect. Because of that, we have seen a lot of challenges, but even in these challenges, there are people who have gone out of their way to make services available for people who use drugs in Africa. So we are going to listen to Richard, who is the chair of African Pud and Africa Pud is the network of people who use drugs in Africa. But before Richard comes, let me just introduce the panel. We have Wajangure from Uhayehashri. We have Julie from South Africa. Then we have Wambui Karanja from Vocal Kenya and we have Richard Ninenahazwe from Burundi, but he sits in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. So we are going to invite Richard to tell us briefly his perspective from African Pud. Richard Ninenahazwe is the coordinator of the African Network of People Who Use Drugs, which was registered in 2016. He's the co-founder of Bapud, Burundi Association of People Who Use Drugs. After Bapud was registered as an NGO, he took part in the first study of drug users in Burundi. This study put a new face on drug use and seroprivalence. Representations for people who use drugs at the CCM in Burundi. He led a successful Advocacy for Harm Reduction inscription in the National Strategic Plan 2021-2023 funded by global funds. He endured Africa Pud with its first strategic plan and its first community-led study on human rights violation on people who use drugs during COVID-19. Please welcome Richard. Thank you. Thank you, Banis. I'd like, first of all, to thank everyone here for the floor. My thanks to Elton John Foundation Vocal IDPC for letting us give remarks during that short conversation. I'm sorry I didn't prepare any presentation because I want to make it as a conversation, not an academic thing. First of all, I would like to give you a short overview of African Pud. African Pud is an African network of people who use drugs. Under the umbrella of the International Network of People Who Use Drugs, we have four objectives. First of all, to promote evidence-based research, to push for drug policy, we promote harm reduction, and we have a link with institutions in the same way with us. African Pud, we are based in Tanzania and we cover now 22 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Our membership is one-fold, an organization member. We're talking about drug policy, the involvement of people with drugs. I think this is a must and it has been proved that good policies are led by people who use drugs. This is a current example in South Africa where people who use drugs have made a good job about drug policy. Reflecting on that, development is a must as the international guidelines on drug policies by UNHDS define it. We have to call state members to move all societal barriers to drug use. Because even we say we legalize the drug use, there is that look from the society, from Africa, and say that those guys, they are using drugs. This is a hard way run by criminalization. The government have to remove those barriers to allow us as evidence to show us to be in part of the train of drug policy. Talking about what is working in Africa and what are the challenges in drug policy. Yes, there are some parts in Africa where drug policies are good. I can mention South Africa, I can mention Ghana. We have seen good policies change. We are also confident that we have now 22 networks registered in different countries. The first step that we register networks of people's drugs is a movement which is starting. But we still have people who are sentences to jail because they are using drugs or because they have something they are using to use the drugs. In some countries you can be jailed because you have just a rizla, a rolling paper, because you have a syringe in your pocket. You don't have the drug but you have that kind of thing we are going to use. So we need to, yes of course the policies aim to promote the harm reduction. But why harm reduction not human right? Why I am getting services of harm reduction but still jailed because I have only syringe, because I have only rolling paper. And where it is going good, we need to strengthen those initiatives. There are small parts where it is going well. I mentioned South Africa and Ghana. But also in East Africa we are starting to see good initiatives talking about women who use drugs. We have seen a network of women who use drugs, we have seen people working on women who use drugs. We have to strengthen those initiatives. And where we don't have them put more strength on it. So we need more found to conduct good drug policies and reforms because these are what we call procedures, it's not something. And we have challenges you know in Africa. For instance the case of MPs, they can serve for the first time but in the other term there will be a new one. So we have also to deal with those changes among our leaders. And I would like to end my conversation by this. I wanted to, I didn't want to be so long. I think we are going to continue our discussion with other presentation and questions will reveal what maybe I didn't say. Thank you. Thank you Richard for letting us know that in the course of implementing harm reduction there are so many challenges. We are talking about criminalizing, we are talking about arresting people who are going to access the harm reduction commodities. We are talking about lacking of funds of poverty. We talk about drinks of drug cartels, taking hostage of drug users that are there and gangs of course of South Africa we cannot forget and then we are talking about corruption. So next we are going to hear from Julie. Julie is a human rights healthcare and harm reduction consultant from South Africa with special focus on women who use drugs. Julie holds an executive director position for stand action who operate in rural areas in South Africa. Stand action is a steering committee member for the wild assembly for community action on alcohol and consults to several local and international funded projects through the Global Fund, UNODC, Open Society Foundation and Sanford, Robotka Foundation and TBHAV Care. Please give it up to Julie. I'm going to stand up there. Good evening everybody. It's lovely to have so many people here at this time. I know it's late in the day and everyone needs a drink so thank you for being here. Still to listen to this presentation I'll try to keep it brief. So I've been very privileged to have this project funded through the Elton John AIDS Foundation. Primarily what we're hoping to be doing is to capacitate and train healthcare workers on how to work better with pregnant women who use drugs. And also to establish a evidence-based toolkit which can be rolled out quite broadly. We're hoping to roll it out more broadly around South Africa. Initially we will be just doing it, piloting it in the western Cape. And this toolkit, besides providing evidence-based information on the different drugs that are common in the western Cape, will also be looking at their impact on the development of the fetus and uterus. Okay, so why do we need this project? Why was it important? Currently there's no accurate data around the number of pregnant women in South Africa who use drugs. Women who use drugs are frequently stigmatized and in some instances even turned away from healthcare facilities, particularly in rural areas, when they are trying to access perinatal services. Another concern we have there is because in rural South Africa communities and villages are very small, a lot of people know each other, in fact most people know each other. And so if there is a woman who is pregnant and using drugs, she may refrain from going to healthcare services because she doesn't want people in her village to become aware of the fact that she's using drugs. Healthcare workers in South Africa have limited knowledge, unfortunately, with regards to evidence-based information on substance use. In the nursing training in South Africa, there is only a very small segment of the training dedicated to substance use information. And there are no guidelines or toolkits available to support healthcare workers in this field that are specific to the South African context. And there are also very few funded harm reduction services in South Africa. And currently there is not one harm reduction service available to people in rural South Africa. Okay, another problem we have, the Western Cape has the highest rate of fetal alcohol spectrum disorders in the world. Currently about 111 per 1,000 population born are born with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. And the Western Cape has as high as 290 so that it's a massive amount of children that are born experiencing the fetal alcohol spectrum disorders. And beyond, what I should have actually written there is that there are several factors beyond poverty and socio-economic circumstances that impact this in South Africa. One being the dope system and for those who are not aware, that was something that was prevalent in the apartheid era where people were part-paid with alcohol. So specifically for those that were working on farms, on wine farms or in the brewery industry, part of their pay during that time was actually paid with alcohol, which that has been disbanded but unfortunately in rural areas it does still take place. Stigma and discrimination when women are trying to access care. Shabeen, so again those that don't know, these were normally established in the, well these were established in the 1950s as organized resistance to apartheid. There were places where people could gather and there was a lot of campaigning that took place and that was originated from being in Shabeen. These were open late and operated outside of legislature and that is still ongoing. So they are located throughout South Africa including in townships and rural regions and very little legislature is there to kind of contain. So they will operate and sell alcohol throughout the night through on weekends, public holidays where other more legislated for instance liquor outlets are not available. And then obviously affordable and accessibility. So people again that I mentioned working on wine farms and in the brewery industry they have easy access to alcohol at cheaper prices. And we also have in South Africa what's known as a court. I'm not sure how prevalent that is in other areas around the world which is a unit size of beer. So for those that normally beers are sold in bottles in kind of 333-40 ml sometimes a pint of 500. In South Africa a court is between 1.1 and 1.3 litres of alcohol. So there are a lot of factors that influence why drinking is prevalent in rural areas. And then obviously having a lack of treatment facilities including harm reduction service provision for pregnant women who use drugs. Those are the main reasons we really wanted to develop this toolkit and this training. These were just some photos I thought I'd share with you of the woman I had focused groups with and interviewed before we started working on the toolkit just to make sure that what we were talking to was relevant to the context of how they were living. You can see this was a classroom that I was able to borrow at a crash for the day. And the woman obviously there is no childcare facilities in rural areas. So I just invited the ladies to come and join with their bring their children along. So what will our project do? In July of last year our Education Minister Angie Mocheca she mentioned that there were recorded 90,000 South African school going girls between the age of 10 and 19 who had had babies. Between April 21 and March 2022. So we're wanting to make sure that there is some level of education that will reach school going girls through health care services. Health care professionals including nurses, community health care workers, haste counselors. There are the HIV and AIDS counselors and others will be trained and capacitated on the latest evidence based information concerning pregnancy and substance use. After that we will be doing case studies with three women and we will try to follow them throughout the duration of their pregnancy. Just seeing whether the nurses and health care staff that we had trained, whether their levels of service had differed once they had had training through their pregnancy. And then we'll also be carrying out an ongoing monitoring and evaluation process which will run concurrently to evaluate if the toolkit is actually helpful for the health care workers themselves. And we will look at ways in which we can strengthen that or better the content. And once that pilot project is completed in the western Cape we'll be rolling that out hopefully more broadly in 2024. Quick summary of what we've done today. So we've done two focus groups. We've documented the baseline data of the area. We've engaged with Department of Health at district and provincial level. We've carried out one-on-one engagements with the leads of three provincial health care clinics that provide antinatal services to pregnant women just to establish what their concerns were and the issues that they were having in the areas. We've engaged with the National Harm Reduction Coalition who will collaborate with us on the development of the harm reduction toolkit for pregnant women to ensure it aligns with global best practice. And we have now drafted the first toolkit. Training on that will take place next week so I literally get back to Cape Town on Friday and start training on Monday or Tuesday. And once that's done we'll be taking some further information from the health care workers and rework that back into the toolkit. And that's where we are at the moment and yeah just to close on some photographs from the ongoing engagements that we've done. You'll see me standing in the top with one of the ladies that is currently pregnant. She's given us some great insight into current experiences that she's had at public health care services which haven't been great. And then just a picture at the bottom. Those are the prams and you can see there's one modified wheelchair there that someone's having to use as a pram. And I thought that was just quite a nice kind of demonstration that in the rural areas with lack of resources they really try to do whatever they can to meet the needs. Yeah, thank you very much. Thank you very much Julie for the wonderful presentation. Next you're going to have Wanja Ngure to make a presentation to us. Wanja is a Kenyan feminist and a human rights activist based in Nairobi. She has a degree in social work and a master's degree in human rights. She has over 19 years of experience working with marginalized key and vulnerable population in eastern and southern African countries. She's currently the program manager grant making at Ohai Air Shrie. Ohai Air Shrie is an indigenous grant making grant maker that supports civil society, organizing for and by sex workers and sexual and gender minorities. In the last three years they have also been deliberately incorporating funding on harm reduction in Burundi and the DRC, the Democratic Republic of Congo. Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda with flexible and accessible grants, capacity support. Support for Pan-African advocacy and research and documentation. She draws our inspiration from hope, love and the strength which comes from communities that she serves. She believes that everything in life has a solution to it and it is our noble duty as a humanity to figure it out. Her charisma and positive action vibe has led to her work tirelessly in activism, specifically advocating for the lasting change for marginalized and key vulnerable communities. Welcome Wanja. Good evening everyone. This is quite a scary space. Yeah, but we have to do what we need to do. And thanks so much Eja, thanks Voko. And thanks everyone for coming in here to recent to this beautiful presentation that are coming from these beautiful presenters. I was actually asked to present on quite an interesting topic that is key to my heart intersectionality. And my questions were, why do we need intersectional approach to harm reduction? As Vanessa said, I come from Uhai Isli. Uhai Isli is a grant maker, is an indigenous grant maker that fads seven countries in Eastern Africa. We work with sex workers, we work with the LGBTIQ folks. And the last three years we have the re-burry tree incorporated the aspect of drug use, because from our perspective we believe drug use is not an identity. Drug use is our vulnerability that cuts across various populations. And so that is key to our grant making. And yeah, so, am I the one who's supposed to be blind? Gosh, this technology works. Oh, this didn't even work. Just pop it on the side. Participatory grant making is one thing that we work with. So I would ask for participatory presentation right now. So help me in learning the slides. So my presentation is based on two things. Intersectional approaches in policy making and policy advocacy. As well as in grant making for harm reduction. So what is intersectionality? And according to the people who coined intersectionality, we have Kibari Crenshaw who actually believe that if you do not use intersectionality, most vulnerable populations are going to fall through the class. And that is what we are actually seeing in most of the work that we do. And someone, a feminist by the name of Oddly Lord actually has also said that there's one thing, there's no one being, which is a single issue struggle, because we do not live a single issue lives. Next slide. So then in that case, what does the concept of intersectionality? What does it talk about? I think I actually also want to mention before even I move to the concept of intersectionality is that this is quite a buzzword of late. And it is not, which is beautiful, but it is a, it's a, it's a buzzword that probably people are just coming into understudying what really intersectionality is. And it is now that the awareness is growing. So what does it articulate? It articulate, analyze the lived realities of those who experience multiple inequalities. And as I had said earlier, it doesn't just look at one vulnerability, but it looks at various vulnerabilities that are structured by the society or that people live with and how they interpret to affect people's rights. And so intersectionality recognizes that people's lives are shaped by identities, their relationship and social factors. And all these, once they combine, they create intersecting forms of privileges. They also create structures of power. They informs how roles and policies are made. And they also informs even how government and program makers address these issues. And also it also brings in about how oppression actually comes, comes about and how also discrimination, stigma and discrimination is actually manifest itself. Move to the next slide. Thank you. So intersectional approach, intersectional approach that means that analysts definitely do not give higher status to any social category in equality or experience. So once you are using intersectionality in policy development, if you are talking about, I give examples with the population that we work with, if you are working with a lesbian woman. So what does intersectionality mean for that lesbian woman? Because beside the fact that she is sexually attracted to other women, there are so many other things that compound to make that lesbian woman. She would be a lesbian woman who is a sex worker and don't bring in a question of how she's a sex worker because sex worker, sex worker is trade, but she could also be a lesbian sex worker who uses drugs. So how do we make sure that even as we are, we are addressing or we are making policies that we are able to address the issues of this lesbian woman who has all these compounding vulnerabilities? To ensure then that that woman does not serve as stigma and discrimination because her factor pushes her to the periphery. And then the other thing that is an approach that would help us in doing policy advocacy, it's analyzing the power dynamics and how we do it as Ohio is ensuring that these populations are the populations who are defining what needs to be done. We are not the people on the table. We are not the people with the lived realities. So we actually get to the people with the lived realities. We get them to do the work, flight from conceptualization. There is one concept that has continued and especially in the donor world that populations, our populations I'm talking about, they do not have capacity, but they have the capacity. They have the knowledge, they have the lived realities. So how do we analyze these power dynamics to make sure that these people actually get to define the policies, get to define what really works for them. And definitely also it's also important to also look at some of the historical injustices and contemporary structures that define the lived realities of these people. We are talking about homophobia. We are talking about patriarchy. We are talking about ableism. There are so many other things that structure the society and that pushes our communities to be oppressed. So then in terms of, let's move to the next slide. So in terms of grant making, one of the things that is our driving factor at Ohio is participatory grant making. We are actually a participatory grant maker. And so what that means is that we try as much as possible to help, to break the silos that comes with funding. And what does that mean is, Ohio is actually a nondematic fader. What nondematic funding for us means is that once a concept comes to us, we don't necessarily say, oh, this deals with this. We actually look at what is that population trying to address. And if we have funding then definitely we figure out, we work out with them and help them and fund them. So we try as much and we also move with this concept even to other donors trying to say that why don't we give communities funding that is flexible, funding that we'll be able to help them deal with all the issues that are compounding other than just at least one issue that we think as faders that is what is affecting them. So from my experience, funding for PUDE and sexual and gender minorities are among the most silent funding streams when it comes to human life philanthropy. And so to help us address and legislate on issues in their complex and their complexity and address the root causes, we would definitely want to bring in about our participatory grant. Participatory approaches get to get the people with the lived realities on the table to move the resources to make the decision of how they would want those resources, how they would want those resources to be moved. And that does not just apply into the funding. It also goes back to policy when we are talking about policy. At what point do we actually bring the people with the lived realities and I mean people with all the sectors, if it's a person who use drugs who is a woman who has disability, how do we make sure that all these vulnerabilities are taken into perspective when we are even developing these kind of policies. And so what I'm saying here is that the silent funding in most cases is not all the time that these are less issues, they are less issues that affect people who use drugs. And so that is why it's important that we address the component of my time. Yes. Bad news, thank you very much. Next slide. That addresses the aspect of intersectionality. I'm almost finished. I won't talk much. So we probably would want to move to the next slide because of time. Yes. So what are some of the challenges in policy implementation? Yes. So one of the things that we have found as a grantmaker, as challenges, especially when it comes to programming and policy and policy is the siloed way of how funding moves. And we are trying as much to talk to our colleagues, our other donors, whether public, private, or not so even bilateral donors, to incorporate aspect of flexible funding so that then, other communities are able to actually address issues and address them with the various vulnerabilities that comes with that. And this also moves across all the things, even when it comes to programming and policy. And how do we ensure? I know this year we are actually talking about universal health coverage. We will be moving to New York in September to look at the whole aspect of universal health coverage. And this question keeps coming into my mind. The last five years, what is this that we have achieved? We are fighting criminalization happening each and every day because we are not talking to our communities. We are not getting the communities on our table. I'm very happy that my government is here because policies are being made by governments in parliaments that are actually affecting the same people that we've said, that we declared in New York that we are not going to leave behind. Right now, as we speak, there is a law, there is a bill in parliament to be tabled on legislating LGBTIQ folks in Kenya. It's happening in Uganda. Tanzania game has been arrested and jailed for that years just because of loving another person. Burodi, we still have 17 community members in detention just because they were arrested addressing HIV issues on men who have sex with men. So these are the issues that our communities or people who use drugs, our sex workers, the LGBTIQ folks are going through. And what is funny is that these laws that are being defined or rather that are being developed from a moralistic aspect thinking that they are actually just going to affect those populations but in reality because of how our world overlaps, issues overlap they are actually going to affect the same general population. They are going to affect the economies of our countries. They are going to affect so many other things. So how do we address, and this one I'm also talking to the donors is that how do we actually ensure that we give more funding to these populations in a way that is not silent so that they are able, they get empowered, money is power we move without God all the time, so that they get power to be able to push, they get power to learn, to get to move away from your countries in case they're being arrested and being able to actually to get to even at the international level to lobby for this. And then we also need, the other thing about funding that is not silent but funding that looks at work from an intersectional angle, it strengthens our communities from competition because then sex workers are not saying oh we just want to work as sex workers. People who use drugs they just don't want to work but they will work together and they will be able to move they will be able to change the systems of operation because there is strength in solidarity and we have a theme for this workshop rather for this conference. So let's move from the boardroom let's move with this trend in solidarity in how we do our programming for our populations and even in how we fund our population. Thank you so much I would have talked more but I'm told my time is over. I promise next time you take more time I'll find you. Next you're going to have Omboi Karanja present to us. Omboi Karanja is an advocate of the High Court of Kenya with over seven years of experience in the legal field. She has an wavering passion for advancing human rights with a strong focus on advocating for harm reduction policies and programs. She currently leads the Vocal Kenya Policy Advocacy Project. Her legal expertise and commitment to social justice have driven her to write research papers and legal opinion on laws in Kenya and Tanzania as well as working on projects with OSF, EDF and HRI. Let's welcome Omboi. Good evening everyone. I also did make a presentation like Richard because I wanted this to be more conversational. So I just read from my notes. What I was asked to present on was how can communities and civil society work together in the policy formulation process. So I've been working on that field specifically and I just speak about the work that I've been doing and I'll make it very, very informal. So there are three things that I'm going to mention and then I'll just break them down so that I don't take money's time and be fined. So number one is consultation and participation. We want the community and the CSOs obviously to have consultations and participation. If the community doesn't give their views on what they think the laws should look like as Wanja talked about, then we're not going to have laws that are conclusive or show exactly what the society is talking about. So on consultation and participation I would say the community, policy makers and I'm thankful to have our policy makers here today and service providers for people who use drugs they call that such as police and other health service providers are very important for us to collect information from. For the second thing we're talking about advocacy. After this is the lobbying and the public campaigns and the media outreach so that we can get the laws that we've created and the input that we've gotten from the people out to the public just to have everybody's opinion. And then after that we have capacity building so we have training programs and workshops which we do this at Vocal already and activities that enable communities and CSOs to better participate in the policy formulation process. Why do we do this? We do this to ensure that policies are informed by the experiences and perspectives of people who use drugs and that they are effective in addressing the needs of concerns of the community. So obviously the community has the expertise and the knowledge. They have these lived experiences. They are asking for input from them. We know exactly what we're trying to collect and they know exactly what they want to see in their laws. Representation and advocacy from the community have coordinated efforts so collaboration creates coordinated efforts that are more effective in achieving policy objectives and then obviously human rights and social justice so working together helps to ensure that policies are based on principles of human rights and social justice and that we don't perpetuate harm and discrimination which is happening a lot in the PWD and I would just say keep population as well. So to end this, I think I've kept my time. It's important too. One just said that money is power. I would say money and laws are power and they work together and they go together because if you have money and the laws are still making something criminal there are some of the things that you still can't do. So money and laws go together and it's important to pass the right laws for our society and that reflect who we are. Thank you. Next you're going to a very interesting session where we are going to have, we are blessed to have two sitting Kenya members of parliament with us and we are going to give them a chance just to tell us more about political leadership in harm reduction in Africa and specifically in Kenya. But before we do that we are just going to have a brief summary from our presenters. Richard talked about a community perspective on the challenges facing harm reduction in Kenya today. Mentioned a lot of criminalization, drug users being arrested just because you're a user not because you're found in position. Julie outlined the programmatic aspect of working with women who use drugs in South Africa. She outlined how the program has been implemented some of the challenges and experiences. And Wangya shared with us the intersectionality debate and why we need all communities on the table not just on board, on the table. And one boy just told us you cannot have money without power. You need both. So pack your questions and as you do that I'm going to invite the Honorable Sabina Wangyuru Chege she's a sitting member of parliament and in the former parliament she was the chair of health and she helped pass several health bills. She's going to talk to us about providing political leadership and supporting civil society and people who use drugs. We want an Africa perspective but she'll probably be specific to Kenya. Karibu Maheshimiwa is a word in Swahili which means honorable. Clap for my MP. Harder. Thank you very much. Good evening. You know sometimes there's confusion of time. It's actually 10 a.m. back home. So I find it a little bit confusing with the timing. First and foremost is to thank all of you for having yourself and having this time to come and have this very important discussion. As you've been told a second time member of parliament has served the National Assembly of Kenya for the last 10 years and the first five years I would chair the Education Committee at the National Assembly and last time I chaired the Health Committee at the National Assembly was able to interact with a majority of Kenyans and maybe a few other people abroad on harm reduction and I'm proud to say that tonight I am one of the few legislatures who are champions or the voice on harm reduction. And so I almost became the Deputy President of Republic of Kenya almost. So I didn't go for any competitive position but I was nominated by my party again to serve at the National Assembly. Though I am serving in the Agricultural Committee now I am also seated as a member of the Paws and Privileges Committee at the National Assembly but I'm glad that I'm back here to support a good cause. I happened to listen to the lady from South Africa on her experience which was very helpful and it just made me think back about home and a few things that we tried to do in the Health Committee last time on the universal health coverage and especially to make sure that we have our women especially pregnant women access so we started a program called Linda Mama where the financing was fully done by the government and those are some of the experiences maybe Kenyan can share with the rest of you where we have put money so that it doesn't discriminate any woman who gets pregnant they have access to go for clinic they have access to actually get proper health care until delivery. By the time I was exiting the Health Committee we are trying to work on the universal health coverage bill where we were looking at access affordability and quality of health care across the board in the Republic of Kenya but one of the challenges we found along the way was especially with the young people you know the courage even to go to hospital even to go and ask for help that was one of the main challenges that we encountered and we're trying to look at people and ask for help. Our parliament is quite interesting and I have my colleague who is here and especially when we come to the topic that Wanja was raising about involving everybody you call it inter sectionality it's quite a very sensitive based on the culture and where we come from and understanding and I think last week I followed quietly on one of our pages as members of parliament as Honourable Pasaris was trying to fight for the rights of LGBTQ and she got fired up she was called all sort of names and she was called demon devil everything and she said you can call me wherever you want to call me but I'll stand for their rights so let's appreciate Honourable Pasaris she did know I was following I normally don't talk much but my own equal share of my party trying to by the way I also I'm also the deputy minority whip for now before they kick me out her party is trying to get my position so I'm fighting and so I left Kenya when I was the fighter on very high notes trying to defend my position I came in nominated by my party Jubilee but we also in a coalition called and they're also doing a few things that I don't believe in and so sometimes you know when you decide that you have a right of association it also becomes very tricky for the politicians so it's not also easy where we know then every human being has a right freedom of expression you know right of association but it's easier said than done we have laws in Kenya we have legislation that's where we get the challenge because we are not the implementers we are law makers we have tried there was a bill that we worked on last parliament on the narcotics use of drugs and the whole discussion was how do you treat the person with a peddler and the drug user and I've been one of the chief campaigners saying we have our national the information against drugs abuse is called Nakada in my country which is anchored at the ministry of interior and my big fight which is something that we are picking up with parliament and we started it last parliament is to make sure that we move that department from interior to the ministry of health because I'm a strong believer that the people who are using drugs are not criminals they are arrested and not to be criminalized and one of the situations that we have seen in Kenya is that a few people a section of people who would be arrested might be using marijuana then they go to prison and they might not afford to get the fines that are very heavy imposed on them then they'll end up using the hard drugs because then they have more access and so for me is to actually look at the our laws to see how we can be able to separate the two how are we able to make it a health issue how are we able to support and finally is on the we are the lawmakers and the other ones who allocate money I've had the issue of money coming in and I know Africans we heavily depend on donors I want to urge all of us and especially when there are these new concepts that are not embraced by the government I want to urge all of us to vote if you say you are asking for votes to support a section that is not well understood you are almost 100% sure that you will not get the money or if you allocate money it goes to the main plenary in the whole house it is going to be removed so I want to recommend the donors who have been supporting let's do more but we will see how we work with the committee of health I am still their friend I am still a very big supporter and huge supporter and see how we can be able to work on that and I am sure our honourable member will talk about a bill that is coming up in parliament we will see how we look at the existing laws to enhance them so that we are able to gain more and not raise a lot of money if people don't understand it they can just kill it even before it gets to the floor of the house so for me it is just to thank all of you I remain a champion I still feel that the issue of harm reduction should be taken inside our hearts it is no longer work as usual or just making a law for the sake of law but we really need to really understand the concept of how we can deal with the problem. Thank you for the opportunity Thank you Madam MP Next I want to call upon Honourable Esther Passeres who is the woman rep for Nairobi Karibu Masheemira Good evening Allow me to acknowledge the traditions the traditional custodians of the land on which we meet I also extend that respect to Aboriginal and or Torres Strait Islanders, people who are joining us here today. My name is Esther Bissaris. I'm serving a second term in Parliament. I'm a member of UNITE. I'm the chapter chair for Eastern and Southern Africa and I'm also a member of the Pan-African Parliament. I was in the Health Committee with my then chair Savina Chege in the last Parliament. In this Parliament I'm in Housing and Lens and in Pan-African Parliament I'm in the rural economy for agriculture, natural resources and climate change. Now as Savina mentioned I am bringing a bill to the House with the support of vocal on harm reduction. Now how did I get to know about harm reduction? I mean before when I was just a citizen I had no idea what it was and yesterday I texted a friend to explain to her that I'm in Melbourne and I'm attending this conference and she said why should we put any money to help them if they decide to take drugs why not just let them you know. So I think we have a lot of work to do actually I don't think I know we have a lot of work to do. My first encounter with harm reduction is when Savina and I actually went to Portugal and we were taken to have a look at the programs that they have there and that's how we both joined UNITE and even when I left the Health Committee I continued going around the world with UNITE and meeting other members of Parliament and partners. So for me where are we and how do we support the people that use drugs? I operate a fund as a woman representative of about $60,000 per constituency per annum and I try and serve everybody so of course after coming back from Portugal I found out that we have two harm reduction centres in my capital city of Nairobi one operated by the devolved government the county government of Nairobi and one by the national government in a referral hospital for mental health. I visited both harm reduction centres and it was disheartening to hear that you know we come here we get the methadone we get the treatment but we track such long hours and we don't get food the tablets the interventions that we get the medicines that we get are really harsh on the stomach and if we don't have enough food it's it's it's more harmful than doing good and then to walk all the way back you know and if we do get transport allowance from some of the civil society then of course we have a choice on whether to use the money for food for our families or to to pay for the transport then another problem of course we have a huge problem with unemployment in Kenya and that was a problem that they had how do we get jobs who will employ us we don't have any qualifications so we decided to do a sample pilot we took a few of them to driving school we had others go for cabin tree we bought them tools but it's I mean I can't even say it's a drop in the ocean it's not even a drop it's just atmosphere you know it's it's nothing that is of impact you know we have a problem even employing graduates you know people who've been termicking for years that have got PhDs masters and they can't get jobs so unemployment becomes a big issue in in our region and then you've got the community of drug users you've got the community of LGBTQI you've got the sex workers these are key populations that we need to look into and right now we're in a dangerous spot we're in a dangerous spot because I recently sat with an MP we had a meeting and I stood up again and talked about my my views on LGBTQI and the human rights and this member of parliament fellow member of parliament told me if I had my way I'd kill all of them you know I was sitting there next to her and I was thinking but I mean why God doesn't like them I said but the bribe will say is thou shall not kill so I said aren't you lost you know I don't know I don't know why people start using God in such a bad way because at the end of the day I haven't received any member from God saying he needs any help from anyone so so so a lot of work needs to be done I'm proud of Kenya in the sense that with its partners it's been able to at least operate over 10 harm reduction centres I'm proud of Bernice here and vocal and all the CSOs that are represented here you they found their way here they're good amazing voices and I said let's put ourselves in a group let's work let's get the harm reduction bill a reality let's get the county governments to actually you know I I wasn't sponsored by government I think Sabina's here courtesy of the Kenya government I was told there was no budget that's that's that's the advantage of being in bed with the government I'm not yet there and that's why they're trying to take the seat of minority we because they feel you know you've already jumped camp but that's politics of Kenya I I'm like I don't support the demonstrations because I think we're in a bad space as it is post COVID we don't need to create turmoil we need a government that works and I can see everybody celebrating what's going on in Sudan and saying hey you know here we come so we do have a problem I believe that we should celebrate the gains the wins I went in Elton John Foundation I want to say thank you very much I went into the movie theatre this afternoon and watch quite a few of the the films that you've put together and I suggest all of you really find a chance to catch one of the films because they really give the the the stories in the previous panel that I was in there was a discussion on what do we need we need we need numbers we need to actually quantify the numbers and that's the biggest problem we don't have data data data and UNO DC is not having enough and I think Bernice and I are going to create some public participation so we call them and try and get some data then the next thing you need is emotions you need to rise people's emotions and get them to feel the pain and the pinch of of these people their families their Kenyans just like us and then of course we need to do research but all in all we should not tire the fact that we made it here and we're part and parcel of this conversation I think you should give yourself a big clap we've got a lot of work to do let's leave this world a better place and let's leave no one behind thank you very much and God bless you thank you thank you Esther so as we go into the questioning time we are going to take all questions I think at once yeah then each panelist is going to choose or you can direct your question to a specific panelist I mean we go in around thank you so much yes Wangarei my question goes to okay so thank you my question I'm Wangarei Kemehmya I'm from Kenya and my question goes to anyone who would answer this but maybe the politicians in the house I said that the bigger problem we have is poverty and employment homelessness which is not only a problem of people who use drugs or women who use drugs and understand I'll not ask us to go and ask government to do something special for our population but I'm just wondering why we are not using this narrative for advocacy like pushing in parliament it is poverty being punished because we have people who are LGBTQI in the uploads of Nairobi but nobody touches those people so I'm thinking this is something we could write on and let everyone know even those the members of parliament who are all over saying about LGBTQI people who use drugs so I'm thinking it's a narrative we can use because it is poverty being punished it is the poor woman in in the streets of Nairobi who will be arrested by police people are injecting drugs in Karen and the high places in Nairobi so I still feel it's something that we could use and we have not used enough I'm just wondering for the members of parliament in the house or even the other advocates are we using that to push enough to make people feel guilty and realize that don't tell us you are so moralistic go to those big places and arrest people who are injecting drugs we know politicians who use drugs but nobody they even say openly I use drugs but nobody touches those people so my main main concern is I don't feel like we are bringing out this strongly enough to make them know we know you are hypocrites you are actually punishing poor people thank you and Gary do you have another question thank you I'm Stanley from Uganda from this session also mine goes to the politicians as the community members that donors I think we have the will to to promote the rights and also ensure that we promote good health for people who use drugs and get drugs but we found the challenge that we've talked about the issue of money is so we can have donors who can give us money but if the law cannot allow us to use that money we cannot use it I can give an example in Uganda we have the narcotic and a psychotropic act however if someone is supporting something that promotes drug use you you can be taken into jail in this case I would bring the example of NSP NSP it is taken as a promotion of drug use in Uganda so we cannot write anything about NSP we cannot do anything about NSP because we are considered to be what promoting drug use and the same thing as the ministry that we don't have people who injecting drug use as why someone in the ministry is part of the government how can they accept that we have injecting drug use as yes the law does not accept people to use injecting drug use so we've had donors willing to support us with NSP but since the government cannot allow us to distribute and share to the committee members about NSP we cannot do do it and one of the parliamentarians told us that we should use numbers what we've seen is that even the data as we the committee members can gather if it is not validated by the government the government will not accept the data but that is generated by the community members so you find it hard to create a case you find it hard to create a case recently we are trying to it was the one-on-one with one of the lawmakers and I was trying to share the importance of harm reduction programs and the comment he made that don't you think that you're in the wrong field so if people still have such such mentalities that drug use is not a public health issue how shall we go about it yet the laws and the lawmakers are not believing in the problem that is existing thank you next question I'm just for the expediency of moving the mic I can go next yes thank you my name is Kriba Karaoke I am a legal practitioner who actually put together vocals thoughts and drafted that legislation that machine was going to be pushing through the National Assembly and I think mine is a two-fold question and of course a draft suggestion we are in the process of formulating this policies that of course we understand those laws are made for us they'll keep evolving and keep growing and that's something that has really come out in this particular process so my initial question is from a people-centered perspective the problem is here with us we cannot keep running away from it and we can't keep expecting and waiting that up until the legislation is in places when we love formidable solutions and in the process of coming up with that particular legislation and working with the community the main question was what happens to us in the event that the donors pull out what happens to us in the interim right now what would be a short-term win and that's when we get into the process of is it possible for you to give us a commitment to actually place forward an authentic attempt to put in place fiscal strategy where currently the budget-making process of the next cycle for our government is it possible to input something in that particular process that gives a small anchorage to the process of home reduction service provision in the interim as we wait we understand that's a very volatile conversation back at home from a traditional traditional concept our own understanding of their issues that will take time to pre to establish this framework just the policy framework and then moving towards the institutional framework capacity strengthening equipping them training them everything will take upwards of the next two political cycles so what would be the interim measure that we can actually put in place to ensure that there's something some semblance of anchorage of relief and support of the communities in the interim but with a government backing because right now if our global partners pull out Ted will tell us whether it's possible to keep sustaining the home production services in all those drop zones in all those home reduction centers is a government making any commitment to the extent of we can actually have something for them in the interim period as we move forward thank you thank you thank you Kiriba kindly allow me to stand my name is Ted Wanderer I could I work with an organization known as the caucus on home reduction and drug police reforms which is a platform that brings together drug policy advocates vocal vocal our members of the caucus so I just want advice from our two legislators because as one just said there is legislation now that was currently been tabled in parliament on the criminalization of same-sex sexual relations and it's it's we've had this law before but it's not as detailed as it is right now because it also it'll criminalize funding it criminalizes gender aspects that have never been criminalized before it criminalizes even speaking about in parliament in those emotion in parliament the other day just all publications speaking about same-sex sexual relations should not be used that includes also documents from the Ministry of Health so my worry is today's the LGBTI community quite recently made such wonderful gains with with the tool legislators here when when the narcotics act was passed and we had good gains on provision of harm reduction services where they're decriminalized but my worry is the government has worked with the LGBT community for so long and now there's this big shift what says that the government won't shun against the drug users next we can't sit and just say it's those guys right now and with one just discussion on intersectionality my worry is as as soon as that bill passes we might be the next target and people will die when it comes to issues around drugs people will die that's my biggest worry so we just want a piece of advice because we're going to full we're going into full war I won't like to full out war with parliament on this so just want to advise on how we can go about it how we can go about it just who should we target who should we target what should we do just want to pick your brain on that thank you thank you thank you Ted there's another question here thanks I'm Darvin now I work in Soweto city of Joburg we work with many of sex with men and it's exactly the point of intersectionality and I just want to table because I don't think it's very stigmatized it's very hidden both in mainstream drug programs if there's something like that and mainstream LGBT work is the issue of sexualized drug use that that you get among MSM very poor MSM but also surely in terms of sex workers so yeah the point is just that that we take this specific group into account in our advocacy and and our programming and I also really like the first comment of like people of course have a hierarchy of needs starting with food and security and moving up and programs really need to respond to that I mean it's senseless doing programs about self-actualization but people are angry you know you need to to cater for for the hierarchy of people's needs thank you is there another question or we can okay how are we going to do this I start you want to answer first then Sabina good you want to combine all the questions or you want to go on the specifics it's already on okay okay so you know when we talk about hypocrites you know the the rich use drugs but we target the poor the same thing we got quite a number of political leaders who are LGBTQI and they're in the closet so yeah and they will not speak up for the communities and we know that they're there you know so that's that's the way it is I think since our laws talk about public participation or one of the things that we've agreed with Bernice is that we're going to call a civic and try and get data try and show that we have numbers because once we show we have numbers and then we're able to tell the stories and show the emotions right and then the research but I've seen that government doesn't really care when it when you tell them oh by by providing a budget for hum reduction you will save so much money on HIV infections or hepatitis right so in the long run you'll save I mean if if they actually listen to that concept of saving then they would have released the guidelines on abortion where before the courts said release them on the GMM case we were spending about five to ten million dollars on post abortion care in our public hospitals it was safer and cheaper to actually provide safer abortions but nobody wanted to hit the guidelines I think the problem we have is this holier endow morality Catholic problem that we have I mean everybody all of a sudden has become a really good Christians my goodness I would hate to I would hate to think of forget what the LGBTQI do but can you imagine what the heterosexuals are doing in their bedrooms I mean it's worse it's worse so you know here these playing saints and half those men are probably having nl sex with their wives and their girlfriends so here you know and when you talk about defilement and rape and all the sexual offenses right now we're looking at the LGBTQI and we're thinking oh they're going to sort of buys our boys they're going to recruit our boys my goodness 200,000 girls got pregnant during the pandemic half of all of them under eight under 18 who was defiling and raping these kids it was the heterosexuals 85% of our population is heterosexual if 10 or 15% are LGBTQI believe me we're focusing on the wrong community we need to focus on the heterosexuals and the crimes that they do so we need to get that message out there all right so I'm Satan's assistant I'm lesbian you know hi honestly okay I don't see what's wrong with that if they think I am you know I actually said bring it on is that all you got but you know I'm the only one who signed the petition worldwide of parliamentarians telling me 70 get real sometimes I think his son is a mad nut but I think his son would be more supportive of us than he is so maybe it's time that the son took over so let's pray for that too you know he's a mad nut to crack you know what we're talking about what can we do now if the donors pull out there's always that fear what if the donors pull out when we were in the health community a committee I remember once telling Sabina that you know what we provide so little for commodities for family planning and we depend we're so donor dependent on family planning what if they pull out considering right now we have a situation that everybody's got problems that come past covid right I mean we we are under universal health care I think there's a provision that government is doing for harm reduction so the question is right now how to get the county government to starting off with their Robbie trying improve and create more centers for harm reduction know the numbers and then put the emotional cases are out there and then once we've done that we get the government to start doing it you know I don't think we're going to need more money we're just gonna have to need a way because government saying we're in high and dead we don't have money we just need to find a way to twerk it round and get the government to be doing the things and seeing the sense of spending money on harm reduction to on key populations to save money in the future so it's it's a it's a long process it's not gonna be easy but all I can say is we've got a lot of work to do right we've got a lot of work to do and we should not tire you know it's it's not gonna be easy but you know karaoke yeah yeah you know you talked about the law that we just passed and you were celebrating that oh we snuck in the needle syringe program you know so the question is right now to make sure that we do a spot check and confirm that there are needles syringes in the hospitals and they are being used I think social media gets people moving all right sometimes I've noticed that government responds to abuse on social media and that costs nothing let's just get on their backs you know on social media tagging them and telling them where they're going wrong and where they need to focus I think we have to use that when it comes to parliament I I think right now the current president that we have you know was installed by God that's what they believe so the God the God that they worship kind of is now telling them that LGBTQI are sinful you know and we shouldn't do it but I can tell you one thing we in our Constitution have the Bill of Rights the judiciary has made a pronouncement and the judiciary is now going to reverse it's a Supreme Court that made that decision this thing was a 10-year case on whether the LGBTQI can be registered so the case is done no matter how much noise they make no matter what they do the judiciary is going to stick to the law and the law is they have the right to associate the problem is we are dealing with this panel court that was colonial and that is messing us up and it's now we're not going to be able to move it so what I think we should do is try and find a way to empower the community with employment with you know with you know they're going to go underground to get their treatment because right now if a member of parliament could sit next to me and says why should we budget for HIV retroviral drugs for LGBTQI let them die so this is a member of parliament this is a representative of the people who basically is supposed to be in tune with the SDGs that says leave no one behind but right now everybody's got the memo from God I haven't so yeah let's just continue the fight yeah thank you thank you honorable Sabina do you want to you want to say something okay I think for Esther has spoken a lot of things I don't want to go back to what she has said I wanted to just handle the issue of Uganda and they I think that's the only bit about the law and I just wanted to tell you we in Kenya we did our amendment of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substance act and one of the things that we did was looking at the issue where the service provider the ones who give the surrogates you know then they arrested by the police for doing the same thing that you're trying to work on and we did some amendment maybe we you may need to borrow a few things what we did on that act on Kenya so that then we can be able to protect the ones who are service providers on this matter I think that's the only bit that Esther has not touched what I'll say and especially in Kenya and I know Esther is very passionate I've said I've seen are getting abused I don't talk might be I also got a memo but the whole thing is not about the memo there's the issue of the law and the implementation of the law and as you said if you are able to use the social media because the law might be there the High Court can pass whatever law they do but the implementation is what matters the same social media we are talking about can also be the same social media that can also bring down all the gains that we have had so we really need to know how to balance the two how to communicate and what to their what time and actually even who to use because there are some people who are social media influencers that we can be able to use that will positively work for us there's another method that we can use and then we also lose all the gains that we have taken so it's a very thin line and as I've said I've been following the matter and I will no promise that it's going to be easy even when it comes to the flow of the house I think those are special motion by the member for Niali I came on the flow of the house and you could have you could have seen the it was fireworks I would just say it was fireworks so it's not going to be easy but we can be able to use the social media influencers we can know the right approach and I always believe when we said this issue of harm reduction even when I was going to tell my speaker that I want to come he was like what is a harm reduction even for him to understand you know something as basic as now you're talking about drugs and assisting it was very difficult for him to understand so we need to repackage ourselves and know then who do we target let's target if it is a speaker if it's the members of parliament we know somebody like Bob or we know for instance if you would say something he has such a huge following let's see who our partners are going to be then we caucus and have a way forward that will be my advice but it's a it's an agenda that needs to really be approached with all the care I know for Esther Esther speaks she'll talk about a motion she'll talk about everything she really doesn't care but also the population she pre-represents and especially in Nairobi they would really go along with it and like some of us who represent a population in the village where you can even find your house touched or you know all your cows if not good stolen we all deal with different voters and so we we approach our matters very differently but I and I believe there is a way out it might be one step at a time but we'll get there thank you very much thank you Sabina let me give the chance to the other panelists first then we come back to umeshimura Julie could you please share briefly these are questions that were pre-recorded could you please share briefly the importance of knowledge sharing between the regions in Africa I think yeah I think knowledge sharing is really important and I think there were two things that stood out for me today and that was one primarily this looking at funding opportunities I think we must never forget that knowledge is really powerful that that there is a lot of power that comes from sharing knowledge that can be done without access to funding but I think in terms of what we've done we've done a huge amount of with San put in particular of advocating and getting information out into communities and allowing communities to share that knowledge more broadly amongst their peers I'm also not a huge fan in the African context of webinars I think it excludes far too many people who don't have access to technology they don't have access to data they don't have access to cell phones I think it is a very Eurocentric approach and it's not something that works really well in Africa so if anybody here is looking at rolling out knowledge sharing and education processes and training in South Africa please really consider or in Africa and our other regions please really consider doing so face-to-face or in other models but not necessarily through webinars and then I think just in terms one really key thing is that with knowledge sharing you need to keep that contextual and I know from what I've picked up here today again in Africa we tend to be talking about harm reduction in terms of needles and syringe programs in terms of OAT of prevalence of methadone whereas we need to remember that harm reduction itself is actually a set of principles and policies and it speaks to stimulant use as well it speaks to sex workers was mentioned and that we need to we need to really start in Africa to enhance the understanding of what harm reduction actually is and that it is more than just needles and syringes when we're advocating for harm reduction services when we're doing any knowledge sharing around harm reduction in Africa that we're speaking also to the people that are using stimulants people that have alcohol use disorders and not only focusing on on but opiate medications yeah and opiate services and injecting uses thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you I mean I never thought about this until I mentioned it I mean yeah you know I mean bubble we know Bobby Wine and Malema are somehow like looking at themselves as the future leaders Malema is very very pro LGBTQI you know and he supports and stands for them and fights for them so I think yeah we need to pay him a visit and tell him to talk to Babu we know and get him on our side yeah yeah so I think that's a good one yes Sean we've got a very progressive PS4 for prisons Mary Jason Mary Jason but I tell you to try and get any of these parliamentarians to come up and show up on a conversation on LGBTQI the room will have chairs but I'll be the only one we will mobilize unless we call it something else yes yeah yeah I think so let's just like the co-oper bill the way the co-oper meeting on hum reduction we'll do another one for SDGs and then we'll try and do one just on hum reduction yeah yeah we have to we have to go this way until we get what we want thank you thank you thank you panelist I think oh I have another question probably the last one hi as a West African what is the involvement of non anglophone speaking African country in this what is the involvement of francophones what is the involvement of non south central east what about my people on the west and the north this is fascinating but does not involve us so and when Julie said Africa I love how we like to make the 54 countries and monolith we're very different at all levels of morality and you know there's no Christianity in many countries that use we go through tuberculosis injection drug use is not what's an issue it's more inhaling use so there's so many disparities on what drug use looks like in our 54 countries and then we talk about the continent it's I'm again what's happening in Kenya I find fascinating because even the political system is very British francophones don't have the same type of parliament right colonialism I'm listening to you I'm thinking okay you guys are really British because those of colonized by French people that that's not how it works right so I wanted to ask out of the 22 countries who's not on that side and how do you work and how do you plan on on bridging that because for us to be better to know language is an issue imperialism is an issue colonization is an issue religion is an issue how where we are on the spectrum of morality is an issue and money which country which which African countries react also differently right so Thank you Barney says allowed me to speak in French. Yeah, I've allowed him to speak in French. Well, we don't want to exclude the non-francophone speakers But we want those who don't speak French to understand. So thank you first of all me me to come from a frank for French speaking Network Brune you speak French. So you say what the involvement of French speakers? Networks first of all we have one representative come come sitting on the board of African food representing French speakers From Rafa suit Sandrin could you die you can go to the website because she's come from Ivory Coast and What's we we do you know harm reduction? Speeches has been reserved as People speaking English we have been able to translate Some documents in French and distribute them through Rafa suit Rafa suits are like an African put but but made by French speakers and we now we don't have any problem because even if we We do trainings we do both in the two languages. We have also lose the fun speaking from Zimbabwe Mozambique so we try to to To move that but those barriers of language we speaks Same because there's no heroine for Spain's French speakers or cocaine for English speaker. So there's no problem. We have now in the in the 22 countries We have Senegal we have come and we have Burundi we have Mali and Ivory Coast who are French speakers Thank You Richard. I think also we should have water. We we are aware of is there was a lot of visa issues With West Africa colleagues Otherwise, we usually have very many community members and civil society members from West Africa We are aware of our friends who are denied visa to come. So there's just nothing that we could do It happened even in the AIDS conference in Canada But Just to assure you there are Networks of people who use drugs in West Africa We have heard that East Africa harm reduction conference and we invited everybody and I know there's musta from bunch from Senegal That they appear networks in West Africa that work together with Africa put but now when it comes to sessions like this one It's these are things out of our control and we are very sorry, but I think we need change everywhere This is what we call structural discrimination Thank you so much. So we will give up an eliz Three seconds each to to round up as we finish out possible. I'll start with one. I think the seconds are not heavy I did not definitely wajah. It's a wajah. It's a noisemaker And I actually I actually want to touch on that issue of francophone country because to be honest Francophone countries have been left out in everything including in funding. So even being in this conference and we do not have Rugby justice for me is not an excuse whether they are francophone people or not in the room like we needed to have translation for French speakers for the other people who are present in the room So I think this is something that we really really need to To have in mind that there are regions that have really been left out and francophone in all the populations Actually, and that's why they do not make much noise in Montreal, but our growth ones were there We were there with brackets. Anyway, my last dream What I wanted to talk about and it is this issue of criminalization and thank you so much Ted for bringing that up because yes today they are coming for lgbtq tomorrow They will come for people who use drugs there and they will actually come for the criminalized populations at once trust me on that That being the thing we need to deal with is those people that God is speaking to Those that is our main main problem. There is so much money being invested in Africa to criminalize populations We need to track this money. We need to track these individuals We need to make them accountable. We need to put them. We need to put those governments the US We need actually to tell them to keep their people in the US Remember should not come to destabilize Africa This so-called family protection bills It's a well well curated project. There is no way you got the has passed a bill Kenya is passing a bill Tanzania We have gave people arrested and jailed for that a year and broody. We have 17 people in detention all of them are gay men It is a whole curated project So I think for me even as we talk about these issues of drug And I'm so happy to see Shawn here because I think he's been doing a lot of research on that tracking Tracking these forces that are actually pushing for discrimination that are pushing for these systems of operation For communities of people who use drugs for sex workers and for the lgbtq persons Thank you, thank you I became a politician Because I was a social entrepreneur doing a business to light up Kenya and then I started being fought By politicians and I couldn't understand. I'm doing something good for the country. Why are you fighting me? So that's why I decided to get into politics Because I was inspired by JFK's us not what your country can do for you But what you can do for your country in all of you the civil society that I'm sitting here with you are You it's time. It's time to get into government It's time to identify the seats that you need to go for and it's time to get mentored to become politicians because we need That other voice if we're going, you know The electorate is a reflect the leaders are reflection of the electorate and vice versa So if we're going to have a lot of resistance in everything that we want to do It's because we are allowing the electorate to bring in the bad leaders So we got to change the electorate in the same time change the leaders So I really want all of you to consider Getting into there because that space is getting very lonely I'd like to see a few of the people that have memos from God exit so that I Can have the ones that don't have memos from God working with me But all in all I think we've got a lot of work to do. I don't I no longer call myself a feminist I call myself a humanist. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'll just keep a short and sweet and Mine is just to everybody Regardless of what country you're from Is please just do not forget about the rural populations rural and remote people. They are also heavily Stigmatized and discriminated against Particularly and with regards to substance use or alcohol use disorder So please and any policies that you're working on or addressing any Active activism and campaigns. Please don't forget to include the rural and remote populations. Thank you Mine is just to it's a discovery that I just made today when Wangari asked a question about punishing the poor people and Esther your answer was they don't care about the money and I remember oh hi you had a workshop and There's a question that you kept asking us about the power over and power within and I remember I was just going through that and I think what I've discovered is just the government's Power is in the people Just as the Constitution says it so this is where we're supposed to be lobbying the people It doesn't matter if you bring logic into it and explain how you'd save more money Going this side by this other side if the people say no As Sabina also said her people will ban you and take your goods and you know and your cows and everything The people say no then it's a no the people say yes there is a yes So the media and just trying to lobby the people would be the key for For our movement So thank you everyone for for the flow. So let's walk for the criminalization because This is our culture taking drugs as our culture and drugs are very good. You know, this is the time and also the criminalization will We criminalization if we end criminalization will enable many people to access to health services To have more power Individ who can contribute to the development of our country. So the realization Decriminalization as a new revolution. Thank you Wow, I I just want to say that it's important that we keep on exchanging ideas. I think already from this discussion. We've learned something new Let's see Where different approaches will work? Let's not reinvent the wheel where we able to borrow from each other and different countries on what can be done and Before the civil society before you all come to parliament Esther has asked you to let's use the people of Goodwill who already there Before we do the next election in Kenya to be the next four and something Four and a half years to come So for now, what do we do? Let's work for the best. Let's do what we need to do now and not tomorrow so myself I again want to offer my support and in the best way that I can and I know myself with Esther and a few other colleagues. We've already met all the women Members of Parliament in my parliament and already the SDG group We are going one step at a time as I said it might not happen overnight But the conversation we are having today is not what we had yesterday things are changing. So let's be positive Let's keep on fighting and we can't give up the fight. Thank you very much Thank you everybody. Thank you for coming. Thank you for listening to continue this conversation Sean is having a meeting to a session tomorrow on imperialism where the money is and One job will be talking about intersectionality and participatory grant making tomorrow at 2 p.m. See you there