ADDIRIS - Addiction and Harm Reduction: a global French-speaking network for online learning

The work of NGOs and training institutions is an important driver for change in policy and practice in the field of addiction. NGOs are[SP1]  a powerful source of knowledge and development of inclusive practices. Several associations from six French-speaking countries (Burkina Faso, Canada, Ivory Coast, France, Senegal and Switzerland) are coming together to launch a joint MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) on drug policies and harm reduction. A large part of the resources on harm reduction was initiated by English speakers, and French-speaking actors had to translate the terms despite the inherent difficulties of this process. As a result, the terminology used to define the harm reduction approach in French struggles to achieve consensus: risk reduction, harm reduction, damage reduction, survival aid: depending on the country, the stakeholders and the period, the terms change without always being clearly understood. French-speaking countries share a culture of drug use and support that is unique to them, and it is against this backdrop that their practice of harm reduction should emerge. Can we talk in common about harm reduction? How can a project produce a definition that is both shared and open? The members of the project have embarked on a process of co-construction of a teaching project that will better integrate the specific characteristics and cross-disciplinary aspects of six different countries.
The ADDIRIS project is part of this process of democratizing knowledge, specifically in the field of harm reduction in French-speaking countries, and offers:

1. The creation of an online training course focusing on the exchange of knowledge and practices.
2. A dialogue between different French-speaking communities from both the North and the South.
3. The promotion of knowledge of harm reduction in the field of addiction, in the form of a MOOC 
4. Two in-person "Académies Addiction".
5. The opportunity to share and evaluate learning and best practices in the partner countries.

Main aims:

• To democratize theoretical and practical knowledge about policies and practices in the field of addiction, particularly harm reduction;
• To create networks for exchanging practices in different countries (intercultural exchange);
• To enable cooperation and the transmission of knowledge and practices between institutions, professionals in the field, and educational institutions (interdisciplinary exchange);
• To offer a project that is widely accessible to anyone interested in the topic (low-threshold access), thanks to its technical simplicity. To achieve this, online access is central;
• To strengthen civil society's influence and ability to advocate for addiction-related policies (bottom-up);
• To promote an effective and pragmatic approach to addiction that respects human rights through e-learning for stakeholders in the field of addiction in French-speaking countries: people working in the field, the police, political decision-makers, members of the social and health sectors and civil society.