Sharing Experience in Poland

Ok, I must confess I was a little bit sceptical about this conference. Oh, please don't take this the wrong way - I mean, even though I thought it was a fantastic idea to put lots of different NGOs in a room to exchange experiences, I wasn't quite sure if it would work purely because I have participated in meetings with NGOs before which ended in wild arguments with some people practically yelling at each other and others leaving the room in a Latino soap opera style. Yes, patient groups can be very passionate at times (and no, for those wondering, I wasn't one of the people shouting or leaving the room in a Latino soap opera style...). Having said so, I've also participated in meetings which were very inspiring and productive.

So it was great to see how nicely the days unfolded; we had very interesting presentations on fundraising, networking, lobbying, how to strengthen the NGO structure, how to explore different PR tools etc which were extremely useful, especially to smaller patient groups and groups which had recently been formed. It was also interesting to see that other patient groups from different fields (e.g.: cancer, diabetes, leukaemia) faced similar challenges and to learn how they dealt with those.

The conference was a success and it showed how useful other groups' experiences can be - we at the World Hepatitis Alliance really believe in this and try to promote this exchange of success stories through this very blog and through the materials we produce for patient groups around the world.

All in all, I had a great time and met really nice people. Oh, and talking of which, I ended up meeting a Polish NGO which deals with hepatitis! Their name is Star of Hope Foundation - I hope to find out more about them soon.