Let’s Be Together! Let’s Be Humans!

January 18, 2005

AIDS Foundation East-West (AFEW) – an international humanitarian non-governmental organisation – in close cooperation with the All-Ukrainian Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS, and with the support of the Ukrainian Ministry of Health, is conducting a nationwide mass media campaign in Ukraine which is aimed at promoting solidarity with people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA).

The campaign aims to help people live in a world where HIV and AIDS have long become facts of everyday life, through the availability of comprehensive and reliable information about HIV and AIDS, which will help people to come to terms with their fears and preconceptions. Ani Lorak, the famous Ukrainian singer and UN Goodwill Ambassador on HIV/AIDS, will feature in the campaign.

The HIV/AIDS epidemic has long left the confines of the traditional risk groups (injecting drug users and sex workers), and is now spreading among broader sections of the population. The lack of information about HIV/AIDS among the Ukrainian population is leading to intolerant and negative attitudes towards PLWHA and to a severe limitation of their civil rights.

According to results of research carried out by AFEW in 2004, there is an acute shortage of comprehensive and reliable information about HIV/AIDS, which leads to the formation of negative attitudes towards PLWHA. In turn, this means that PLWHA try to hide their positive status.

Stigma and discrimination remain the most serious problems we face in preventing HIV/AIDS and also in the issue of offering treatment and support to PLWHA. In many countries PLWHA feel isolated from the rest of society, and Ukraine is no exception. International experience shows that if people receive accurate information about HIV/AIDS they are more likely to develop tolerance of and empathy towards PLWHA.

The campaign is unique in that PLWHA themselves took part in its development. This is the first time that PLWHA have tried to make society at large understand their feelings and worries, and to help people change their attitudes towards them. The campaign materials include testimony from people who have experience dealing with PLWHA. This is intended to help anyone who finds themselves in a similar situation to deal with their emotions.

The solidarity campaign under the slogan of “Let’s be together! Let’s be humans!” will last for four months and will take place in seven regions of Ukraine: Kyiv, Odessa, Simferopol, Nikolaev, Donetsk, Lvov and Dniepropetrovsk. The campaign materials include two video clips, five audio clips, outdoor advertisements, and printed materials. Various mass media events will also be organised.

The campaign has been financed by the International HIV/AIDS Alliance (within the framework of the ‘Managing the HIV Epidemic in Ukraine’ project, supported by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria), the Netherlands Organisation for International Development Cooperation (Novib-Oxfam), the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), and Médecins Sans Frontières – Holland.

For more information please contact:

Anja Teltschik – Regional Director, Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, Baltic States
AIDS Foundation East-West (AFEW)
anja_teltschik@afew.org  

Mikhail Morgunsky – Project Manager, Media Campaigns
AIDS Foundation East-West (AFEW)
mikhail morgunsky@afew.org

Kyiv 01034, 21-g Yaroslaviv Val Str., apt. 26/4
Tel/Fax: +38 044 2358834, 2353001, 2358820
http://www.afew.org

Dmytro Chepur – PR manager of the All-Ukrainian Network of people living with HIV/AIDS
chepur@network.org.ua

Kiev, 24b Mezhigirska str.,
tel. 425-69-89, 425-10-87
www.network.org.ua