The Hindu : New Delhi News : Cheese, calories and much else

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jan 27, 2006

New Delhi

New Delhi

Cheese, calories and much else

Mandira Nayar

NGO targets youth with catchy punch lines to create awareness about HIV/AIDS NGO targets youth with catchy punch lines to create awareness about HIV/AIDS

NEW DELHI: The steaming hot pizza that is delivered at your doorstep within 30 minutes might soon have more to offer than just cheese and calories. Offering some food for thought, the pizzas will now come with cards that aim at spreading the right message about HIV.

An attempt to target the youth in their "lingo", this project by Breakthrough -- a non-government organisation working in the area of human rights -- in collaboration with Cards4U and Badmash uses comics with catchy punch-lines to get them to protect themselves against the deadly disease.

Not squeamish about talking about the way HIV/AIDS is spread, the cards have been designed for a generation that has got used to satellite television in a global world and has grown up watching sitcoms like "Friends".

"These cards will be available at all the major hangouts including music stores, coffee shops and bookstores. They have factual information about the spread of the disease. While we are human rights organisation we realise that the importance of talking about AIDS as the spread of the disease has moved beyond sex-workers and truck drivers," says Breakthrough associate-director Alika Khosla.

These cards will be available with Pizza Hut, Dominos Pizza as well as all Crosswords outlets across the country. Reaching out to more and more people, the cards will be printed in English, Hindi, Marathi and Kannada. It is also hoped that these cards will find their way into colleges of different universities through peer educators that the organisation has been training.

"We have been working with Miranda House, St. Stephen's and Zakir Husain College to train children so that they can spread this information to more young people. We train them for eight months and provide them with tool kits that are easy to use. The tool-kit has been tested in Delhi and now we are hoping to take it to smaller towns like Kanpur," states Ms. Khosla.

Apart from the catchy punch-line that will tell people about safe sex practices, the card also has other factual details about how the disease spreads as well as a telephone number to find out more. While the cards hope to reach out to the young, they also talk about condom use within marriage.

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