Chair Bios

Raminta Stuikyte

Co-Chair of Policy Working Group, European AIDS Treatment Group & Senior Advisor, Eurasian Harm Reduction Network

Raminta Stuikyte is the Policy Working Group Chair of the international nongovernmental organization European AIDS Treatment Group (EATG) where she focuses efforts on increasing access to essential medicines across the European and Central Asian continent and ensuring rights’ protection. Until 2009, she was the Executive Director of the Eurasian Harm Reduction Network (EHRN), where she continues engagement as Senior Advisor for advocacy and capacity building to reduce harm related to drug use in 27 countries in Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States. As a consultant to the Open Society Institute, she works on supporting transparency in decisions around access to medicines and on raising national and regional efforts for effective response to hidden hepatitis epidemics in Eurasia. Stuikyte completed her master’s degree in Applied Mathematics from Vilnius University in Lithuania. Stuikyte was elected as Deputy Chairperson and President of the Student Representation of Vilnius University, where she was responsible for initiating and organizing a variety of national and international study quality and social projects. Stuikyte co-authored the report entitled “The Impact of Drug Policy on Health and Human Rights in Eastern Europe” and the analysis entitled “Sex Work, HIV/AIDS, and Human Rights in Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia” She also has other publications on drug related harm reduction, HIV/AIDS policies, civil society role and capacities in Central and Eastern Europe, as well as globally. In 2009, she received the ‘Thank You’ award from the East Europe & Central Asia Union of People Living with HIV Organisations. She serves in the UN Reference Group on HIV/AIDS and Human Rights. Other than her native Lithuanian, Ms. Stuikyte speaks fluent Russian and English.

Email: raminta.stuikyte@gmail.com

Declaration of Interests:

Peter Wiessner

Co-Chair of Policy Working Group, European AIDS Treatment Group

Peter Wiessner began to get involved in HIV related work in 1990. He studied social work (diploma) and social science (diploma) at the Humboldt University in Berlin. Before that Mr. Wiessner completed a training as a professional cook and as a deacon for the Lutheran community. From 2001 to 2006, Mr. Wiessner worked for a local NGO in Munich. His main duty in Munich was counselling and prevention in prison. The issues of inequalities and health in prisons continue to interest him. In Munich, Mr. Wiessner directed a reintegration program for long-term unemployed people living with HIV. In 2007, Mr. Wiessner moved to Cologne. He currently works as a freelance consultant, mainly on behalf of the Deutsche AIDS-Hilfe (DAH). For the DAH, Mr. Wiessner published books and brochures on topics like “Long-term survival with HIV” (1995); “HIV and psychiatric disorders” (1998); “HIV and disability” (1999); “HIV-testing” (2000); “Health for male and female prisoners” (2008) and “HIV and migration in Germany” (2010). The main accomplishment of Mr. Wiessner relates to ongoing community-driven research on HIV-related entry and residence regulations. This research started in 1999 and resulted into 9 editions of a booklet containing an overview on the situation in 200 countries that has been translated into several European languages and the creation of the international database on HIV related restrictions at http://www.hivrestrictions.org/, accomplished in cooperation with friends and befriended networks. In 2008, Mr. Wiessner served as a member of the international UNAIDS Task Team on HIV-related travel restrictions, a body that created concrete proposals on how to abolish these sort of discriminative regulations. In the last two years, Mr. Wiessner coordinated a German-wide HIV testing campaign for Men having sex with men (MSM), organized under the umbrella of the prevention campaign for MSM known as “IWWIT” (“I know what I am doing”) with the platform http://www.iwwit.de/.

Mr. Wiessner became a member of the European AIDS Treatment Group in 2003. For the EATG, he co-organized and -chaired the European conference on “The right to HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment, care and support for Migrants and Ethnic Minorities in Europe”, which took place in Lisbon, June 7-8 2007. The conference resulted in the creation of the “Community recommendations on migration and HIV/AIDS”. On behalf of the EATG, Mr. Wiessner currently participates as community representative in the WHO Europe Health in Prison Network (HIPP) and the EU project on Health Promotion for Young Prisoners (HPYP). His main interests relate to legal inequalities and access to health for vulnerable populations with HIV, Human Rights violations in the HIV context, and topics such as criminalization of HIV transmission. Mr. Wiessner speaks English and German.

Email: PETER-WIESSNER@t-online.de

Declaration of Interests: