New ACON Campaign Aims To Tackle HIV Stigma
Forty years after the first case of HIV was reported in the United States, stigma around HIV/AIDS continues to impact the community.
Now, a new campaign from NSW鈥檚 leading HIV organisation ACON and led by people living with HIV (PLHIV) is aiming to change the conversation.聽
The campaign,聽, “seeks to highlight ways HIV stigma experienced by PLHIV can be addressed聽 through embracing positive behavioural and attitudinal change.”
The campaign features a video “that centres personal stories of people living with HIV and the HIV聽 negative allies in their lives.”
鈥淭he first in a series of community engagements we will be having on this issue, It鈥檚 Time to Think Positive About聽 HIV is ACON鈥檚 new campaign addressing HIV stigma, showcasing the very best of allyship between HIV-negative聽 people and people living with HIV,鈥� ACON CEO Nicolas Parkhill said.聽
鈥淭he campaign will add to efforts being made towards changing how we all see HIV, and how stigma can be聽 overcome and resolved through positive framing. Instead of demonstrating the harms of HIV stigma, this聽 evocative campaign shows how to best support people living with HIV with uplifting messages that bridge the聽 serodivide.鈥澛�
According to Karl Johnson, Manager of ACON鈥檚 Gay Men鈥檚 Sexual Health Programs, the objective was to make the call to tackle stigma universal.聽
鈥淗ow do you make an HIV stigma campaign that speaks to the lived experience of HIV? Put people living with HIV at the centre of the work,鈥� said Johnson.聽
鈥�We are extremely proud of the way PLHIV shaped and informed this campaign every step of the way. Centring聽 our community and utilising our experiences to create a tangible and relatable message that encourages both聽 positive and negative people to rethink HIV stigma is not only essential, it鈥檚 best practice.鈥澛�
The focus of the campaign was to balance the responsibility of shouldering the burden of tackling stigma 聽away from PLHIV with the larger community, especially HIV negative allies.聽
鈥淧eople living with HIV have essentially been tasked聽 with fighting stigma themselves, by educating the wider community as well as protecting their peers by adhering聽 to treatments. We are one community and it鈥檚 time we shared the responsibility and work together to eliminate聽 stigma: a significant barrier to ending HIV,鈥� 聽said聽Anthony, one of the participants in the campaign video.
The new campaign is aligned with the new NSW HIV strategy 2021-2025 which calls on ending HIV stigma in aid of聽 supporting PLHIV and preventing transmission.聽
鈥淭he strategy鈥檚 inclusion of people living with HIV as essential to the development of HIV prevention measures is聽 critical to our collective goals of eliminating transmission,鈥� Parkhill added.
