AID FOR AIDS launches the campaign “Esteem or Stigma?” to raise awareness about HIV in the Latino and Caribbean community in NYC
For 18 months, AID FOR AIDS carried out the campaign “Esteem or Stigma?” which intended to guide migrants and asylum seekers who recently arrived in New York City about the importance of getting tested for HIV and knowing their status.
Stigma is often associated with discrimination against people who think differently, who are from a different ethnicity or nationality, or who are sexually diverse. Stigma is a form of human discrimination that can occur in different ways.
The goal of this campaign was to normalize HIV, promote getting tested and teach migrants and refugees that there shouldn’t be fear and rejection to those who are positive.
To appropriately design and develop the campaign, AID FOR AIDS partnered with the New York Immigration Coalition and other organizations such as Mixteca, el Centro del Inmigrante, the Violent Intervention Program, Queer Detainee Empowerment Project, and Caribbean Equality Project. Through several focus groups, AID FOR AIDS was able to understand views, opinions, actions, concerns and interests from this population and design a message that would be able to reach thousands of migrants, asylum seekers and people from the LGBT community.
This campaign was carried out online through social media and offline through strategic bus stops throughout NYC where the message would be seen by the target population.
This campaign reached over 300,000 people and was funded by Gilead Sciences, joining efforts to end the HIV epidemic.
