President Report- Robyn Dwyer

To our valued members, our community, our stakeholders and allies, 

It’s been an invigorating, rewarding, incredibly busy and ultimately successful year for HRVic. 

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As President of the Harm Reduction Victoria (HRVic) Board, I am pleased to present our Annual Report for 2023-2024. Together with my fellow Board members, I am immensely proud of everything the organisation and its exceptional staff and volunteers have achieved this year. 

 

HRVic’s strong performance is evident in the Report, where you can read about the organisation’s wide and diverse range of activities and achievements. These are the realisation of the strategic work HRVic has been doing over the last few years to build capacity as a lived and living experience peer-based organisation working to improve the well-being and rights of people who consume drugs in Victoria.  

Our core programs – PAMS, Health Promotion and Peer Networker Program, FUSE, DOPE and DanceWize – continue to thrive and grow. They provide much needed harm reduction education and services and, as always, they are responsive to ever-changing community needs because they are programs and activities that are embedded in our communities, designed and delivered by lived and living experience peers. 

It is always challenging to choose what to highlight in this President’s report. This year I have selected two activities that I think are excellent reflections and demonstrations of what HRVic is fundamentally about – our community!  

 

The first is the series of community dinners HRVic hosted throughout the year at our now fit-for-purpose Brunswick office. These events represent the fulfillment of HRVic’s long-held desire to more actively engage with our communities. The events brought together community members – long-standing and new, old and young – to socialise and informally share our experiences, perspectives and needs. While providing an important space for pleasure and support, it is events such as these that simultaneously provide opportunities for us to come together to plan and strategise to help achieve our desired futures. 

 

This segues into the second activity that has occupied much of the past year – the creation of HRVic’s Strategic Plan for 2024—2027 that we will launch at this year’s Annual General Meeting. Infused throughout with our central purpose of working with and for our community, the Plan was developed collaboratively with the Board, HRVic staff, our communities and our sector partners and allies. It is the product of collective and consensus effort that provides HRVic with a strong foundation, bold vision and clear plan for the leadership and advocacy we need to support our mission to bring together our communities for our mutual rights and well-being. 

 

Of course, this Strategic Plan and all our work across this reporting year is the collective achievement of the extraordinary people who make HRVic what it is. I commend and thank all our staff and volunteers for their hard work, dedication and exemplary service.  

I also want to thank our valued stakeholders and partners. We could not achieve our strategic aims without your generous participation and collaboration. We look forward to continuing and further strengthening these important partnerships as we work to achieve the objectives and goals of our Strategic Plan. 

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We are also deeply grateful and extend our sincere thanks for the continuing respectful and highly productive relationships we enjoy with our funders in the Department of Health and the generous support they provide that enables our work addressing the multiple issues that impact on the health and well-being of people who use drugs.

 

Finally, I also want to acknowledge and thank my fellow Board members. It is a pleasure to work alongside people with such expertise, professionalism, generosity and compassion.   

It is a privilege to serve as President of the Board of HRVic, to participate in the essential activities of this outstanding organisation and to support the work of our excellent CEO, Sione Crawford, and our incredible, highly skilled and committed staff and peer volunteers.  

I am excited to see what they achieve next. 

On behalf of the Board, I wish you all a happy, productive and successful year ahead. 

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Robyn Dwyer 

President