Transforming Drug Users into Project Coordinators Listen to the interview (Windows Media - 2.6 MB)

I am Ampev Denis, in Štip Macedonia. I am 27 and I am in touch with the programme of the Global Fund in two ways. First, I was a Methadone user. The Methadone centre in Štip is financed by the Global Fund, and I am working in the harm reduction programme in Štip. I coordinate the harm reduction and needle exchange programme in Macedonia and that is an achievement for me, my team here in Štip and the team who are working for the Global Fund in Macedonia.

Q. Are there other people like you who are working in this programme?

Yes, there are. In every town there are about two drug users or ex users working as needle exchange guys or outreach workers. I know that their lives have changed too, for the better. In total, ex-users and users (working) are now about 25 to 30.

Q. What is Methadone and how is it used?

Methadone is a legal drug - a painkiller. People use it when they get pain like cancer, leukemia and others. Before the center opened we were injecting it. It is a liquid solution. When a doctor gives it to you in the center now you must drink it with water, in front of them.

Q. How many people are served by the centre for Methadone treatment and that for needle exchange?

In the Methadone centre they are 63 and in the needle exchange there are 120.  

Q. Tell me a little bit about needle exchange; how many of you would share needles for example?

We were pairs- but when we had a situation where four or five people had just one needle, we shared. We just washed it with water and used it again until the needle was not sharp anymore.

Q. And was there a danger of getting infected with HIV through this?

By luck we didn’t have an HIV positive (user), but I think that at that time if just one person from the guys who were injecting had gotten HIV, we would all have gotten HIV.

Q. How has your life, family and those around you changed since the centre came up?

I was using for 9 years, and I was in the Methadone programme for two years, and now I am clean. I didn’t know what to do, because to work in a factory, they don’t approve the Methadone treatment. Five or six months passed as I was lying home watching television, and I was angry. I first went to hospital to seek help from doctors and people who could help me, but it was all disappointing. Here in Macedonia, in the 1990s nobody knew anything about drugs. We didn’t have any organization like the Global Fund until 1997 to educate us about harm reduction, HIV, and “Stuff”. That is when I got a call from a total stranger . He told me that in Štip, the Global Fund is sponsoring a needle exchange office, and he asked me if I would like to be a field worker.

Then I got to know the people who were working in East Skopje - they started teaching me how to be a field worker and how to help people. I got to know myself; that I had the power to help people. That is when I started working here in Štip. We opened the office and I started going from person to person to offer them the needle exchange programme, and from family to family (which had the problem) to offer them the social, medical help that we offer, with my colleagues. We have psychiatric services, nurse, social, professional doctor services and we have a room where we can sit, talk and watch television.

My life has started to change from the moment that the center opened. My family’s too. I mean my mother; because (before) she had a rough period- my mother got sick from cancer and my father (got sick) in the heart. Financially, I had completely bankrupted myself and my family. I couldn’t afford to go to the hospital in Skopje anymore. My mother lost one breast from cancer and my father is dead now.

I have dedicated my life to helping people.

The guys who are coming to our office are seeing in me something that they can achieve. That you can get out of drugs and do something right. I am saying to all of them that they can get out of drugs, and be clean. That they can work and they can help other peopleThey are calling me in the middle of the night, asking for needles.

Also, I have a diploma from UNICEF for over dosage help, and I have five or six over dosage situations when they have called me first before (calling) the hospital, to help them.  Somebody called me to the hospital to take him because they were scared that the police would press criminal charges.

To get back to the point, my life changed. My mother’s life changed, because from the moment I started working for the needle exchange programme I have regular money in my pockets. I bought a car and I am now driving my mother to the hospitals, to the doctors.

Q. Yours is a very inspiring story. Do you have any final words to add to these?

The Global Fund has done many things in Macedonia, and I think that the Global Fund should be working in Macedonia for another 2 or three years before Macedonia is ready to take that programme. A needle exchange and methadone programme is enormous help for the guys in Macedonia.