For Journalists 

‘PAY ATTENTION TO EVERY DETAIL!
STYLISH, FASHIONABLE, SAFE’

AIDS Foundation East –West (AFEW) launches the first national information campaign for the prevention of HIV/AIDS among young people in the Republic of Moldova

Date: 27 October 2005
Time: 3.00 p.m.
Place: Meeting room, the building of  the Ministry of Health and Social Protection
2 Alecsandri St, Chisinau

Contact: Olga Osadcii, Media Campaigns Project Manager,
AIDS Foundation East-West, AFEW
Tel.: (022) 22 84 86
E-mail: olga_osadcii@afew.org

Moldova's first national campaign for the prevention of HIV/AIDS among young people is to be launched on the eve of the HIV/AIDS and STI Prevention Month declared by the Republic's Ministry of Health and Social Protection. The campaign's slogan: ‘Stylish, fashionable, safe’.

This information campaign is based on young people's natural desire to be fashionable and to look stylish and attractive in any situation. Condoms, like many other everyday objects, need to become an indispensable, fashionable item among sexually active young people. If YOU take care of yourself; if you want to be protected, fashionable and stylish at all times, you must make condoms part of your life. The campaign's goal is to explain this to young people — in their own language — and motivate them to practice safer sex.

In order to achieve this goal, the campaign will place billboards on city streets, broadcast two video clips on television and one special audio clip on the radio, and prepare informational pamphlets, posters, calendars and other forms of literature for distribution.

The campaign strategy and concept were developed based on extensive research conducted throughout Moldova in March 2005 regarding people's knowledge, attitudes and behaviour towards HIV/AIDS and safer sex, as well as their behaviour towards people living with HIV/AIDS.

This research revealed the following tendencies:

• Young people between the ages of 15–29, particularly young women aged 15–19, are at a heightened risk of contracted HIV through sexual contact

• The average age at which young people become sexually active has fallen

• Young people are embarrassed to buy condoms or to speak with their partners and friends about safe sex

• Young people display a high degree of fatalism (‘if getting infected is my fate, condoms won't help’) and misconceptions about how the infection is transmitted

The campaign aims to improve young people's knowledge of HIV, explain to them how they can protect themselves, foster a positive attitude towards the use of condoms and get young people to practice safer sex.

The information campaign will be launched in the national media and will also be carried in five regions: Chisinau, Balti, Edinet, Comrat and Tiraspol. A number of social events will also be held in these regions.

AIDS Foundation East-West (AFEW) is a Dutch non-governmental humanitarian public health organisation whose mission is to make a major contribution to the reduction of the impact of HIV/AIDS in Eastern Europe and Central Asia (EECA). AFEW engages in all areas of HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment and has a wealth of experience in conducting information campaigns. In all its activities, AFEW makes use of the most advanced international practices while taking into account the mentality, traditions and specific traits of the people in each particular country or region.

This campaign has been approved by the Moldovan Ministry of Health and Social Protection and has received funding from the Swedish Agency for Development and International Co-operation (SIDA).