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| Communication and Stigma Reduction Campaign |
Communication Campaign is geared towards reducing HIV related stigma and discrimination in the country.
International experience shows that effective communication about HIV has to be
country specific and reflect local and cultural nuances. During the first Enhanced
Programme, the campaign focused on raising HIV awareness among the general public.
This resulted in some increase in stigma and discrimination (as reported by the clients of
SDPs and by patients of the HIV Treatment and Care Centres) and results from the
Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey suggest that the overall campaign had only a
marginal impact on HIV awareness in the country.
Main factors that account for this limited effectiveness were:
Emphasis on raising
awareness as opposed to reducing stigma and discrimination,
Limited understanding of
which target audience to focus for AIDS awareness.
The Disjointed nature
of the campaign.
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Global experience suggests that in countries and communities where HIV prevalence is
low, few people see the actual effects of HIV/AIDS on people around them. Under these
circumstances, merely increasing awareness of a deadly disease such as HIV creates fear
of the disease and of people living with or affected by it, leading to discrimination rather
than empathy. In low prevalence countries such as Pakistan, it is preferable to present
HIV as a chronic medical condition that can happen to people in the community, but not
as something that should be feared. This suggests that the focus of the communication
campaign ought to go beyond awareness including reduction in stigma and
discrimination.
Lack of understanding of target audiences and messages led to a mainly mass media
approach. It is likely that many of the target audiences do not access mass media enough
to acquire any influence from them. Had baseline and formative research been conducted
as envisioned to identify who was receiving what messages and what was
the impact/outcome of these messages. Such target audience focused and formative
research is usually done by specialist research organizations or institutions with expertise
in strategic communication, and it is likely that the advertisement agency that was hired
by the first Enhanced Programme did not have the capacity for such research.
Finally the disjointed nature of the media campaign led to lack of clarity regarding the
overall objectives to be achieved, it led to over-reliance on a mass media approach where
advertisements and other activities were produced on ad hoc basis, without either
building on previous experiences or taking forward the communication messages in a
thematic sequence. In addition, little attention was paid to other means of communication
such as one on one behavioural change strategies that are aimed at communities.
This all suggests that going forward the communication campaign should be guided by a comprehensive and realistic communication strategy that is based on country specific research and grounded in local cultural realities and is executable. This will
allow synchronization of national and provincial activities to reach identified objectives.
Furthermore, actions carried out in the campaign should continue to use ongoing research
to identify target audiences, content of messages and the modalities through which to
convey such messages. This will represent a departure from the mass media based
approach of the past and enhance the role of the Enhanced HIV & AIDS Control Programme (Federal Component) in the campaign to meet objectives.
This role will be in the form of
Overseeing implementation of communication activities. The
actual communication may be via the mass media (advertisements, TV shows, drama
serials, radio messages, newspaper supplements etc) and will be produced by hiring one
or more private sector firm/ provider.
Continue Research to enhance communication at all levels.
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Positive Voices for Positive change to Fight Against HIV/AIDS
Other activities such as community level messages, workshops and training for media producers, newspaper staff,
community activists etc will be done by the AIDS Control Programmes either directly
or by recruiting partners such as NGOs and/or educational institutions. The NACPs/PACPs may conduct the research themselves or engage research organizations or educational institutions for the purpose.
The AIDS Control Programmes will liaison with appropriate actors such as educational
institutions, NGOs or private sector firms to deliver the messages. While the exact
composition of the messages and their media will be determined by the research, this PC-
1 proposes sufficient budget (based on previous experience) to produce and air TV talk
shows, drama serials, some TV, radio and newspaper advertisements and newsletters; as
well as direct community activities such as focus group discussions, puppet shows, street
theatres etc that may be carried out by NGOs and other partners.
As agreed upon between the PACPs and the NACP, there will be a single contract for a media firm that will be placed in the NACP budget, however, decisions regarding
activities in communication will be made by a committee with equal representation by
the NACP and each of PACPs. No funding for Communication is reflected in the PACP
budgets. This is done to avoid duplication of activities between the provinces and the
federal government. The progress of the campaign will be monitored via internal programme monitoring mechanism and have its impact assessed via independent 3rd party evaluations.
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