|
AFEW:
Projects
>>
2nd
Mass Media Campaign on Safer Sex (Russian Federation)
>>
Press-Release
Press-Release
Launch of Safe Sex campaign "Reasonable Person - Reasonable Choice"
to fight HIV/AIDS in Russia
Moscow, January 28.1999.
The Russian non-profit partnership organization for civic initiatives support
"Focus" is launching a mass media campaign to promote healthy behavior
in fighting HIV infection among Russian youth. This campaign has been developed
in close cooperation with the international, independent, medical-relief organization
Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF) in conjunction with support from Russian health
authorities and various NGO's. The "Reasonable Person - Reasonable Choice"
campaign is a follow-up to the successful MSF campaign "Safe Sex - My Choice"
launched in 1997.
As abstinence is not a realistic option for the majority of young people, the
"Reasonable Person - Reasonable Choice" campaign encourages young
Russians in a friendly and open way to think about their health and to choose
to use a condom as a means of protection when having sex.
The campaign consists of two 35-second animated TV commercials, a 35-second
radio message, outdoor advertisements, information leaflets and pocket calendars.
The campaign will appear in Moscow, and will lead the way for campaigns in other
Russian cities throughout 1999.
This campaign comes at a time when AIDS is an increasing threat to the Russian
population. Only officially recorded in the late eighties, HTV - the cause of
AIDS - has spread rapidly among the population in the recent years. Until December
1995, the total number of HIV positive individuals registered in Russia was
relatively small at just over 1000 people. The year of 1996 proved to be a turning
point in the epidemic. During this year an additional 1.542 new infections were
officially registered - a number exceeding the total number of all cases recorded
in all previous years combined.
In 1997, 4,330 new cases were reported and in 1998, there were more than 10,300
HTV positive people registered in Russia.
Meanwhile in Europe the total of new HTV cases has decreased by 13-25% in the
last two years. This can be explained, among other things, by the extensive
use of education and awareness campaigns implemented over the last six to eight
years with governmental support.
In 1997 MSF developed a model for public health campaigning that integrated
international experience into a specific Russian context, with the intention
to hand over this expertise to a Russian counterpart.
So now for the first time in Russia, members of the national organization "Focus",
who have been trained by MSF for the past 8 months, have managed to carefully
create a follow-up safe sex campaign according to high scientific and international
standards. As from 28 January the "Reasonable Person - Reasonable Choice"
will be seen and heard all over Moscow.
You are kindly invited to be among the first to view this campaign which will
be launched at the Press Conference on Thursday January 28, 1999 at 11.00 hours
in the Radisson Slayjanskaja Hotel in Moscow.
For accreditation and registration please contact Agency of Social Information,
tel (+7 095) 230-6229, 241-6964, 241-3481 ext. 17, e-mail: asi@glasnet.ru
For more information on the campaign contact "Focus", Yevgenija Alexeyeva
tel. (+7 095) 241-6964/3481 e-mail: zhalex@glasnet.ru, npfocus@glasnet.ru
Medicins Sans Frontieres, Ilona van de Braak tel. (+7 503) 956-1958 e-mail:
msfhaids@glasnet.ru
|
AFEW:
