The project works within national contexts and collaborates closely with national partners, in particular the National STD/AIDS Control programme (NSACP) and the Family Health Bureau (FHB) of the Ministry of Health.Goal is to: Advocate the greater uptake of integrated SRH HIV strategies and strengthen ongoing integrations to enable increased access to services by marginalized groups, especially those considered to drive the HIV epidemic- Female sex workers, men who have sex with men, beach boys and drug users including injecting drug users.Steps taken towards realizing this goal are:
A multiethnic multilingual team of Technical Experts in the spheres of SRH, HIV, Integration, Gender and Global Fund mechanisms has enabled the project to successfully reach out to all communities in the country including those in former conflict and tsunami affected areas, key affected populations, youth and women. The project has partnered among others with national and provincial level stakeholders in health, education, social services, district level media, and key activist organisations such as the Women and Media Collective, the Sri Lanka Medical Association Expert Committee on Women’s Health, the private health sector and the defense forces.The EU/SARO mid project review in June 2013 placed the Sri Lanka project in the top tier and 4 of the 5 best practices recommended for replication with /without adaptation by regional countries were from Sri Lanka.At the recently concluded CSO Symposium held in Bangkok, the EU project very successfully show cased three and a half years of journey towards integration in Sri Lanka. The work of all CSOs engaged with during the project duration, including those on-going and best practices, IEC material produced by the project and its grantees were on display. The Sri Lanka booth had many visitors including the Head of the EU Delegation in Bangkok and was highly commended.