Entertainment or Education? Folk Media for HIV/AIDS Prevention

The presentation reports on an integrated district demonstration project in Bagalkot district, Karnataka, India, a district with a high HIV prevalence rate, implemented by the India-Canada Collaborative HIV/AIDS Project (ICHAP). The intervention aimed to increase awareness, and change attitudes and behaviour related to HIV/AIDS through the use of traditional folk media in a rural community.

To promote community participation, 30 community-based folk groups representing eight traditional folk forms were sensitised and trained on different aspects of HIV/AIDS. According to Sarma, this was challenging, since many of them usually conduct only devotional performances. The groups, including both men and women, then developed scripts incorporating messages on STIs, condom use, the need to reduce stigma and discrimination against people living with HIV/AIDS, and the importance of sexual fidelity. The scripts were then set to folk tunes that were traditional vehicles for spiritual expression.

About 125 performances were held within a four-month period, with an average audience size of 500-800. There were high levels of participation by key stakeholders. Opinion leaders, village councils and temple priests who hosted the performances within temple premises, clearly indicated the readiness of a community to talk about a disease that had already claimed many lives around them. The performances were followed by interactive discussions facilitated by outreach workers on various aspects of HIV/AIDS.

Lessons learned included:

• Folk media can facilitate increase in knowledge
• But changing attitudes, social norms requires skilled facilitation, narrator, different approaches
• Social and gender hierarchies determine audience participation and message decoding
• Continued stigma towards PLHA - stakeholders require behaviour change communication (BCC)