What Kind of Man Are You? Breakthrough media campaign

[Guest guest]

Dear Forum,

Breakthrough has launched a brilliant new media campaign to target behaviour

change for men. You can learn more about Breakthrough at

http://www.breakthrough.tv/

Best Regards,

Joya Banerjee

E-mail: <banerjee@...>

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[india] What Kind of Man Are You? Campaign on Women and HIV/AIDS

Launches

Breakthrough is launching a multi-media campaign, ³What Kind of Man Are You?² to

bring public attention to the growing incidence of HIV/AIDS amongst women in

India, most of who have been infected by their husbands or primary male

partners. The sensitive yet tough campaign has been developed pro bono by ad

guru Prasoon Joshi of McCann kson and includes TV and radio spots, and print

ads in six languages: Bengali, Hindi, English, Kannada, Tamil, Telegu and print

in Marathi.

The campaign also includes a music video to the song Maati from Mann ke

Manjeere: an album of women¹s dreams, sung by the renowned Shubha

Mudgal, written by Prasoon Joshi and composed by Shantanu Moitra. The video

features Mandira Bedi and Sameer Soni and has been directed by Arjun Bali of Red

Ice Films.

The campaign will be launched on May 17th at a press conference in

Mumbai followed by press conferences in New Delhi, Kolkata, Bangalore and

Chennai.

Several media houses have already come on board as partners ­ including

STAR, SONY, NDTV, SAHARA, SUN, Sakal, Radio Mirchi and Rediff.com.

³What Kind of Man Are You?² encourages dialogue and sensitivity within

marriage and encourages condom use amongst men. Male insensitivity

towards women leads to many forms of discrimination, including a lack of

responsibility to practice safe sex within marriage and outside. Through the

media campaign, Breakthrough wants to encourage more equal relationships

between men and women and prevent the further spread of HIV/AIDS.

Breakthrough will also continue to conduct workshops and educational

forums with students, homemakers, medical and legal professionals and other

groups on women¹s rights and HIV/AIDS to encourage a deeper understanding of

human rights issues within India.

Consider the numbers. India currently has an estimated 52 lakh HIV/AIDS

infections and about 20 lakh are women. A husband or primary male partner has

infected approximately 85% of them! While the general public continues to

believe that most women with HIV/AIDS are sex workers, official numbers indicate

that they constitute only one lakh of the 20 lakh female infections.

The Breakthrough campaign is pathbreaking because it raises the issue of

HIV/AIDS from the point of view of women while also calling for male

responsibility. Many studies have indicated that because of biological reasons,

women are twice as likely to contract HIV. The increase of HIV/AIDS amongst

women is one more manifestation of women¹s unequal status in society. Women

suffer various forms of violence all through their lives through female

feticide, domestic violence, rape and sexual assault.

HIV/AIDS has now been added to these problems because women find it very

difficult to negotiate safe sex or condom use as a prostitute, wife, or

girlfriend.