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Media Groups Explore Cross-regional Approach to Fighting AIDS
September 2003

By Chido Onumah, Nigeria Officer, Panos Institute

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AIDS is both a local and global phenomenon and the approach to combating it should reflect this reality, says Jan Voordouw, Director of the Panos Institute in the Caribbean and Central America. Voordouw says the Caribbean and West Africa share similar socio-economic conditions and would benefit greatly from working together and sharing ideas on HIV/AIDS. Panos works to strengthen freedom of expression through cross-border collaboration amongst journalists.

Panos is one of the founders of the Centre for Communication on HIV/AIDS (CECOSIDA), a network of journalists and communication professionals in Haiti. The centre was launched in 2000, following a forum Panos helped organize in 1999, and has already developed a strong program of journalist training courses and media campaigns in Haiti. Panos is currently linking up with journalists working on HIV/AIDS in Nigeria to explore opportunities for collaboration.

Nigeria with a population of about 120 million people represents about one-fifth of the total African population. There are close to 3 million people infected with HIV/AIDS in Nigeria. The Nigerian government recently launched a new HIV/AIDS policy to combat the stigma attached to the disease and promote a sense of collective responsibility for fighting it. The new policy views HIV/AIDS as a development problem rather than just a health issue, and there are plans that it would lead to the drafting of a new law to protect the civil rights of people living with HIV/AIDS.

Panos plans to collaborate with Journalists Against AIDS Nigeria (JAAIDS), the main media group working on HIV/AIDS in Nigeria. "We can share methodologies on how to report on the pandemic and bring people's stories - original voices - forward from a diversity of sources," says Voordouw. "Oral testimonies are important in the Caribbean and West-Africa. We can help journalists to effectively interview affected people. We should also link the problems to poverty, disempowerment, exclusion and migration. Many of these issues play in both regions."

JAAIDS welcomes the idea of collaboration. "First there is the need to assess areas of strength and weakness, then the outcome would inform whatever cooperation that may come up after," says Kingsley Obom-Egbulem, information resource officer of the organisation. He says JAAIDS has so much to share in terms of "best practices" and is not only ready to share but is also willing to receive from other organizations.

Founded in 1997 by four Nigerian journalists, Journalists Against AIDS (JAAIDS) Nigeria has been in the forefront of the media campaign in mobilizing journalists to tackle the lack of information about HIV/AIDS. The organization has sought to make journalists behavior change agents in the context of HIV/AIDS. It runs media sensitization campaigns in newsrooms and a training program on HIV reporting for journalism students. It publishes an AIDS News Service, a monthly news bulletin on HIV/AIDS for journalists.

According to Obom-Egbulem, "massive, strategic and sustained media training on HIV/AIDS reporting, access to online material via information and communication technology (ICT) training for journalists, broadcasters and producers has been our 'success' strategy and it can be adopted by any group working in places where there are gaps." JAAIDS runs the Nigeria-aids e-forum. It started out serving the Nigerian community but has grown to over 4000 subscribers with participants from around the world.

In July 2003, 19 journalists took part in a two-day training workshop on Information Technology Resources on HIV/AIDS organized by JAAIDS aimed at developing the capacity of journalists to utilize information and communication technology (ICT) in accessing and disseminating information on HIV/AIDS. The training included sessions on effective email usage, mailing lists and discussion forums, essential WWW and browser skills, use of search engines, computer-assisted research and reporting, guide to HIV/AIDS Websites and to verifying online information.

JAAIDS has collaborated with the media in Kenya and Ethiopia on HIV/AIDS communications. In Tanzania there is what Obom-Egbulem calls "a prototype of JAAIDS Nigeria", JAAIDS (Tanzania). The organization also has working relationship with groups in South Africa and Zimbabwe.

Even though JAAIDS hasn't done any work with the Caribbean," says Obom-Egbulem, "with these efforts, no doubt, an exchange/collaboration with the Caribbean is not only feasible but can make a lot of difference if maximized". So what is keeping his organization from reaching out? Obom-Egbulem thinks distance may be one factor. Two years ago JAAIDS was invited to Jamaica to share experiences on the media and AIDS, but due to local activities around the same period it could not attend.

Except for one media briefing, this is the first time Panos is reaching out to media groups in West Africa. "I believe there are many ways we could collaborate. We could exchange visits, have trainers from West Africa in our courses and the other way round, integrate some of the series of media production, and promote collaboration between JAAIDS and CECOSIDA," says Voordouw.

Journalists working on HIV/AIDS in the Caribbean and Nigeria face many similar challenges. There is the problem of perception in both regions. According to Voordouw, the major challenge in the Caribbean is the "misunderstanding by many organizations about the role of the media". "Many bureaucrats still think that printing a brochure and a poster constitutes a communication campaign or that organizing short training courses for a few journalists in the capital will change everything. The role of debate in the media and consistent information through the media is undervalued."

For JAAIDS, the most recurring problem, says Obom-Egbulem, "is that of hostile editors and line editors who feel we are making money from AIDS". The concern of JAAIDS he says "is borne out of the feeling that these journalists belong to the crop of people who often tell you that AIDS does not exist or that there is too much noise about AIDS".