These guidelines will help you to run an HIV/AIDS campaign in your community – when you are planning your campaign you must keep them in mind.

What Is the Aim of the Campaign?

The aim of the campaign says what you want to achieve at the end of the campaign. To think about your aim ask yourself this question: What do I want to achieve with this campaign?

So, for example, your aim(s) for an HIV/AIDS campaign could be that you want to:

• Reduce the rate of HIV infection in my community and
• Ensure that people with HIV or AIDS and their families in my community are given care and support

How Are You Going to Achieve Your Aims?

Setting Objectives for the Campaign

Objectives are more specific than aims; they help you to achieve your aims. You can ask yourself the question: What must we do to achieve our aims?

Your objectives could be as follows:

To Build Openness and Awareness Around HIV/AIDS & TB

We will do this in the following ways:

• Wear a red ribbon
• Act as role models to show support for the campaign
• Organise aids awareness-raising events for example, marches, cultural events, protests, prayer meetings, loudhailers, information tables in public places
• Openly support people who are open about their hiv status and encourage people be tested for HIV
• Print posters, pamphlets or use graffiti
• Encourage and support people living with aids to go public about their illness
• Encourage voluntary counselling and testing by organising testing drives and ask community leaders who are willing, to go public about their results
• Encourage leaders and other influential people who are HIV-positive to become role models for other people by being open about their status

To Educate People About Prevention, Care and Treatment

We will try to get people to change their sexual behaviour in the following ways:

• Public meetings – invite people to speak on HIV/AIDS, particularly people who are HIV-positive and willing to speak in public about their illness
• Speeches – ask institutions like schools, churches, workplaces, etc if we can send a speaker to talk about HIV/AIDS and TB
• Workshops – present community education workshops
• Chat shows – ask to be invited to speak on chat shows of local radio stations
• Newspapers – write articles for newspapers on prevention of aids, non- discrimination and care for people living with HIV and AIDS and TB or ask journalists to write them
• Plays and songs
• Distribution of pamphlets, booklets, etc.

To Develop Community Care Projects

We will try to help community members living with HIV/AIDS or infected with TB, their families and orphans in the following ways:

• Openly organise support and care for people living with HIV/AIDS and TB
• Start vegetable garden projects to help provide the right food to people who cannot afford it
• Make sure the local health services keep supplies of the cheap medicines that can be used to fight common infections that harm people with HIV/AIDS or TB
• Organise support groups where people living with HIV or AIDS can meet and talk to each other
• Train volunteers in basic home care and counselling so that they can help with house visits and also provide training to home care-givers
• Work with the social services department or the Child Welfare Society to encourage people in the community to take care of orphan children, for example to provide foster care

Who Are We Going to Target?

The campaign should reach everyone in the community but we can also target specific sectors which are more vulnerable –

The Education and Prevention Part of the Campaign

• Sexually active youth, particularly young girls
• Migrant and transport workers
• Sex workers
• Women, particularly those in relationships with HIV-positive men
• Men who are HIV-positive
• Anyone infected with TB or caring for someone with TB
• Drug users
• LGBTI persons
• Men who have sex with men (MSM)

The Awareness and Openness Part of the Campaign

These groups are most likely able to influence people’s attitudes:

• The local mayor
• Ward councillors
• Members of national and provincial parliaments
• Local leadership
• Religious leaders
• Traditional leaders
• Sport and cultural stars
• Popular business people
• Community organisation leaders
• Union leaders
• Teachers
• Community radio DJ’s and newspaper reporters

The Support and Community Care Part of the Campaign

People who need information, care and/or support:

• People who are HIV-positive
• People who are sick with AIDS and need home care
• Children whose parents are dying or have died of AIDS
• Anyone infected with TB or caring for someone with TB

People who can help provide information, care and/or support –

• Community structures and leaders
• Community welfare organisations
• Religious leaders
• Women’s groups
• Local business
• Schools
• Individual volunteers for home care or foster care projects

What Will Our Message Be?

You need to give the campaign an identity and decide what the main messages will be. For example, the Treatment Action Campaign encourages people to wear T-shirts with the slogan ‘HIV-positive’ or ‘TB-Suspect’ to help bring AIDS awareness to the public.