UNAIDS Poster Competition for World AIDS Day

[Guest guest]

UNAIDS Poster Competition for World AIDS Day

We at UNAIDS are back with this exciting effort at mainstreaming the

issues of sexual minorities in our country. We now announce the

highly popular poster competition for World AIDS Day (WAD) this year.

This is what you can do if you are a MSM, transgender or

lesbian/bisexual women's group of any sexual orientation (except

heterosexual) or any gender identity. This year you will notice that

we are bringing in the lesbian/bisexual women into the ambit of this

poster competition in an effort to visibilising their issues in

mainstream society.

How you go about winning this competition

You get together as a group, sit down and thrash out what are your

main issues in dealing with everyday life as you live it. Then, as a

group, you make a poster based on those ideas. Try to make the poster

as polished and ready-to-go as you can; we might send it to Geneva

for international audiences.

You then take it to a college, preferably a school or college

teaching fine arts like painting, crafts or design. You talk to the

Principal of the Institution and show this announcement to him/her

and ask him/her to allot you a particular senior class to talk to

about your issues. Get a letter from the Principal that he/she has

heard you out and agrees or disagrees with what you had to say

regarding your issues..

Use your poster as an educational tool discussing your issues with

the class. The class then gets to do a poster based on your

discussion and their talents at drawings/ painting. It also must also

give you a letter signed by a class-representative saying they heard

you out and that their poster explains how much they understood and

appreciated or otherwise did not appreciate your issues.

Put both posters into a poster-holder/tube and send it to the address

given below to reach us before November 1st, 2008. The first three

poster-pairs will win prizes of Rs. 20,000, Rs. 15,000 and Rs. 10,000

respectively. There will be another fourth prize for the " best

effort " poster-pair. All selected and short-listed poster-pairs will

be displayed at an exhibition UNAIDS arranges every year in Delhi and

the prize winners will get trophies that are really worth exhibiting

in your offices. If we have the money we will get you to Delhi to

accept the award from our UN Country Coordinator (UCC)

Last year, the posters were so well appreciated that somebody stole

all the prize winning posters from the Alliance Franscaise outdoor

gallery despite tight security. That's how much they were

appreciated. Rest assured they will surface after a decade and be

sold for millions of rupees….

So get going and try your hand at this important poster competition.

And remember the last date – November 1st, 2008.

So Queer Folk, don't just march, make a poster too and show them what

material you are made of…..There are prizes to be won and fame and

name to be grabbed too.

Who qualifies to enter this competition?

:

• You must be a group based in India and a majority of your

group should be Indian citizens.

• You must be a MSM, transgender (hijra) or lesbian/bisexual

women's CBO, self-help group or even an e-list (the world then gets

to know about your amazing e-list and the support it gives to sexual

minorities).

• You must have a letter from the Principal of the

College/Institute which you went to with your poster saying the issue

was discussed with him/her

• You must have a letter from the class representative to the

effect that you did your best in explaining the issue to them.

• You as a group should send us a letter about yourself and

what you are doing (support system for your members, counseling,

health services, just gup-chup, whatever)

• A letter from any person in your area – a Nagar Sevak, a

Municipal Corporator, an MLA, MP or even a Minister (!!) that you

approached for help sometime about the problems you face.(not

essential but would be nice for future advocacy).

• Each self-help group, NGO, CBO, Network must register with

the UNAIDS NGO-Gateway as a measure of their legitimacy and effort to

mainstream their issues.

• All NGOs, CBOs and self-help groups (SHGs) must show they

have become members of the AIDS community e-list at

http://www.solutionexchange-un.net.in/subscribe/index.php?comm=AIDS

The posters will be judged by a three-member panel that includes one

MSM/TG/Lesbian or Bisexual rep, one art aficionado and one art

collector.

No employee or consultant of any UN agency shall sit on the panel

The decisions of this panel shall be final. The final authority of

the competition will be the UCC, India.

Address to courier the posters

Ashok Row Kavi

MSM/TG Consultant

UNAIDS

A2/35 Safdarjung Enclave

New Delhi 110,029