Giving Women Power Over AIDS

This project uses photojournalism to "put a face to" AIDS while raising the awareness of viewers about the need for microbicides and mobilising them to be part of the solution. The educational component is intended to inform the public and to motivate them to take action to support the development of microbicides (products that can help reduce the risk of sexual transmission of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs) when applied topically).

In 2002, reporter Paula Bock and photographer Betty Udesen of The Seattle Times traveled to Zimbabwe to get a first hand-look at the reality of HIV/AIDS. The resulting photo-essay, "In Her Mother's Shoes", tells the story of Martha, one of some 11 million AIDS orphans in sub-Saharan Africa, and her mother Ruth. The walk-through exhibit incorporates photography and language from the original newspaper piece, as well as information and images that represent women's vulnerability, the global AIDS pandemic, and microbicides development. The exhibit is tied together with quotations, music, materials, and artifacts aimed at telling the story of why microbicides would be a critical new tool for addressing the HIV pandemic.

The Giving Women Power Over AIDS exhibit is traveling to Philadelphia, Seattle, Sacramento, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Chicago, New Haven, Hartford, New York City, and Boston. In each city, Global Campaign affiliates host events in museums, libraries, shopping malls, universities, state capitol buildings, and community centres to engage community leaders, policy makers, local journalists, and the general public.

Women, AIDS.

According to organisers, every day 14,000 adults become newly infected with HIV; half of them are women. From their perspective, the exhibit "describes what it means to be a woman in a world of AIDS - a world where many women have no way to protect themselves against HIV and little say about relationships, about sex, about condoms."

The Global Campaign for Microbicides is "a broad-based, international effort to build support among policymakers, opinion leaders, and the general public for increased investment into microbicides and other user-controlled prevention methods. Through advocacy, policy analysis, and social science research, the Campaign works to accelerate product development, facilitate widespread access and use, and protect the needs and interests of users, especially women."