Photos

Departmental Awards Ceremony 2004

November 8, 2004

Group Picture of the Departmental Award Ceremony 2004.
Colin Powell in the Center, and Taimi Alas third from left.

Article in the newspaper "Virumaa Teataja"

Article published in the State Magazine
January 2005

Taimi Alas

Economic-Commercial Assistant U.S. Embassy, Tallinn

Taimi Alas, the Foreign Service National Employee of the Year from the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, is an energetic economic assistant in the embassy in Tallinn, Estonia. She earned the award for tirelessly encouraging the Estonian government to recognize the country's burgeoning HIV / AIDS crisis, for persuading donor nations to focus on the problem and for getting them to award the Baltic nation $10 million in Global Fund money to address the HIV crisis. For a long time, Estonian officials denied that their small country-about the size of Vermont and New Hampshire, with a population of about 1.4 million-even had an HIV/AIDS problem.

In 2001, when she learned that Estonia's rising HIV infection rate among intravenous drug users in the economically depressed border region was one of' the highest in Europe, Ms. Alas raised the issue with her contacts in the Ministry of Social Affairs. But no one seemed concerned. Convinced that ignoring the problem would only heighten the crisis, she began arranging discussions on HIV for the new ambassador, who campaigned enthusiastically in the media and in official meetings to raise Estonian awareness of the need to contain the spread of HIV/AIDS. Meanwhile, Ms. Alas developed a strategy to engage her contacts at the ministry and persuade them to work with nongovernmental organizations and with the international donor community.

In 2003, with coordination on the issue still lagging, Ambassador Joseph DeThomas, with Ms. Alas's help, formed an international HIV/AIDS donor group. Ms. Alas ably led the group at the working level and created a database of international HIV efforts in Estonia. All members of the international group consult with her regularly in coordinating their HIV projects.

Thanks in large measure to Ms. Alas's persistent efforts, the Estonian government now recognizes the threat HIV / AIDS poses to the nation. The government has passed a supplemental budget increasing funds for prevention and treatment programs in schools, prisons and within the intravenous drug and homosexual communities. The ministry of social affairs is working closely with donor nations to attack the HIV problem.

"Her work is evidence that one person can effect massive change on a national area."

Taimi Alas started working with the embassy as a translator and protocol assistant in 1992, not long after U.S. relations were established with newly independent Estonia. She became a political-economic assistant two years later and, in 1999, took the economic assistant position. She continues to write economic reports, but it was her environment, science and technology portfolio that drew her to the issue of AIDS.

She and her husband Jüri have two teen-age daughters. In their free time, the family enjoys visiting their cottage on the Gulf of Finland.