Dear friends! From all our hearts we wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Let these holidays - the shepherds of renewal, dreams and hopes - bring you and your family goodness, peace and prosperity, add strength, inspiration and confidence in the future! We wish the New Year will fill your homes with family comfort, harmony, and happiness! Let the glittering Christmas star unite us all with the pure light of inexhaustible human virtues and values.

Late June 2017, WHFP Foundation summed up the results of the 1st stage of the educational component of the "Non-Communicable Diseases: Prevention and Health Promotion in Ukraine" WHO project implementation. The Project is realized by the Foundation since August 2016 and aimed at the development and implementation of the comprehensive and effective health promotion program at schools, being tested at selected pilot institutions of Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Vinnytsia, Poltava, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv oblasts and Kyiv city.

Presentation of the Project results was performed during the Project Annual Conference on June 29-30, 2017 in the premises of Big Conference Hall of the National Academy of Sciences, with the aim to perform Project key achievements and developed instruments as well as to work out and agree Project tasks and Action Plan for the next period.

Presentations and discussion were conducted in accordance with four main thematic sessions of conference agenda, in particular:

1. School Health Policy aimed at schoolchildren health protection and strengthening;
2. Skill-Based Health Education;
3. School Health Environment;
4. School Health Services.

Besides, WHFP experts performed the following project developments to conference participants:

• "School Health Index" - results of school health environment assessment in pilot schools;
• implementation results of pilot schools improvement plans, developed within the Project;
• information materials on non-communicable diseases prevention, developed for pupils and their parents;
• training program for school nurses on non-communicable diseases prevention (necessary steps for primary prevention, risk factors for non-communicable diseases, support of pupils with chronic diseases) and the results of training course testing.

Conference second day was devoted to work in groups aimed at identifying priorities for further activities within the Project next phase.

More than 70 people participated in the conference, in particular, deputy Minister of Health of Ukraine, deputy Minister of Education and Science, senior representatives of the World Health Organization, Swiss Cooperation Office in Ukraine, other international organizations, representatives of Project partners, as well as pilot schools from Vinnytsia, Kharkiv, Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Poltava regions and Kyiv.

On May 23-24 training on the preparation of monitors RE compliance with sexual and reproductive rights of people with mental disabilities at rehabilitation and social services institutions was held in Kiev based at "Tourist" Hotel. Event was organized by experts of the Woman Health and Family Planning Charity Foundation in cooperation with Coalition NGO under support of the Renaissance Foundation. Representatives of organizations and institutions of different ownership from Lutsk, Mukachevo, Chernihiv, Khmelnytsky, Mariupol, Kyiv, Shostka, Drohobych, Zhytomyr, Kolomya, Boryspil, Vinnitsa, Zhovti Vody, Varash city of Rivne oblast and Broska village of Odessa oblasts became training participants. It should be noted that both specialists of these institutions as well as their clients, who will further conduct monitoring and collect information in accordance with “peer to peer” principle, joined the training.

On May 15-16, 2017 international conference "Sexual education: lessons and prospects for WHO European Region" was held in Berlin. The event was attended by representatives of ministries and NGO experts from 38 countries of Europe and Central Asia. Conference was organized by Federal Agency for Health Education in accordance with the recently approved "Action Plan for the Protection of Sexual & Reproductive Health: To Achieve Sustainable Development Goals in Europe by 2030 - Without Leaving Anyone Out of Attention".

Ukraine was represented by Tatiana Slobodian, project coordinator of the International Federation of Planned Parenthood (IPPF) in Ukraine, Iryna Skorbun - monitoring and evaluation expert of the Woman Health & Family Planning Charity Foundation, and Angelina Sardaryan - young leader, representative of "Teenergizer" Association of Teenagers & Youth.

During one of the conference thematic sessions Iryna Skorbun presented "The Right to Love" training program designed for people with mental disabilities, which was highly appreciated by experts from other countries. In addition, the conference provided an opportunity to build the network and strengthen partnership with key experts in sexual education area, including representatives of the WHO European Office, UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education and other organizations.