AIDS Advocacy- How to Do It, How Not To

by Alanna Shaikh · 2009-08-28 19:48:00 UTC
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This week saw some really outstanding writing and thinking about global HIV advocacy, and some ugly stereotypes. This includes incredible videos, disturbing print graphics, and a blogger training manual for how to write about AIDS

IRIN , the United Nations news network, has produced four amazing videos about HIV. Each films profiles someone fighting AIDS, including an activist, an educator, a Catholic bishop, and a TV presenter. It’s hard to make a film about HIV that contains a sense of hope without being previous or overly romantic. These films manage to do it.

The Sociological Images blog features two print ads about HIV. Both of them seem to blame women for the spread of AIDS, and feature the naked female body. I know the ad featured about is supposed to tell us that HIV can happen to everyone, but I don’t think that is the message it sends. Both images just seem to tell me that women are dirty spreaders of disease, and I doubt I’m alone in that. (This blog post on how cool alone is not a marketing strategy might shed some light on what went wrong.)

Maybe the advertisers could have learned something from the Blogging Positively Guide, which is a resource for how to write about HIV. My favorite piece of advice is to remember that although in practice most blogs only have about twelve readers, anything you write could end up seen by a million people. I also really liked their examples of organizations and individuals who use blogging to fight AIDS.

Bonus related link: This isn’t about HIV, but it is about advocacy. The Aid Watch blog has a post criticizing a new cinema ad campaign from Doctors With Borders. Aid Watch hates the video, and thinks it’s way over the line, demonizing Africa and creating a sense of hopelessness. The Aid Watch commenters disagree.

Alanna Shaikh
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