The Marie Stopes International (MSI) Global Partnership provides sexual and reproductive (SRH) health information and services to over four million people and their families in 37 countries across Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, Latin America and the Middle East.

Our main activities include all those that fall within the remit of SRH and rights, including safe motherhood; obstetrics; pre-and post-natal care; mother and child health; contraceptive education and provision; safe abortion; education, screening and treatment for sexually transmitted infections (STIs); and HIV/AIDS education and services. Providing SRH services for marginalised people is a particular focus, including refugees and internally displaced persons, adolescents and commercial sex workers.

We focus on prevention as the cornerstone of its response to HIV/AIDS, providing information and raising awareness of HIV/AIDS and other STIs, particularly among vulnerable groups; distributing condoms; and providing testing and counselling.

As the HIV epidemic continues to devastate global health, we are ideally placed to contribute to a coordinated, national and international response to improve access to HIV prevention and treatment. Through our centre and work-based services, peer education, obstetric services, community-based activities, advocacy and mass communications, we are also able to reach men, women and young people in all sectors of society. As anti-retroviral (ARV) therapy has become available, we have extended our activities to provide voluntary counselling and testing, and treatment referral services.

We are especially concerned with how women are disproportionately affected both by HIV/AIDS and by efforts to respond to the virus. Women lack a widely available method to protect themselves against infection and are dependent on being able to both acquire condoms and negotiate their use. In both instances this can cause enormous difficulties.

Poverty only worsens the situation. Women and girls who have to engage in unsafe sex in exchange for money, housing, food or education are especially vulnerable to all STIs. They may have limited access to any health services available and are already being bypassed with currently available treatments. They are the last ones in the family to have money to spend on their health and nutrition and in countries where the birth rate is high, frequent childbearing can make them even more vulnerable to disease.

We are delighted to be one of the originators of the Women to Women project, which provides a perfect opportunity to raise awareness of some of the difficulties being faced by women coping with HIV/AIDS, wherever they are. Any money that is raised through the project will be used to help promote HIV/AIDS awareness and support for women in our programmes around the world.

For more information, please visit our website: www.mariestopes.org.uk