“Pasion Por La Vida” (“Passion For Life”)
Seeks to Inform and Address AIDS-related Stigma

Public Service Ads Debut Today Region-Wide

BUENOS AIRES, October 14, 2009—Today, an unprecedented coalition of television and radio broadcasters across Latin America launches PASION POR LA VIDA / PAIXAO PELA VIDA (“Passion for Life”)—the first regional effort led by media to inspire and empower people to help stem the spread of HIV/AIDS. Profiling courageous individuals living with HIV across the region, the campaign aims to put a face on the region’s HIV/AIDS epidemic and encourage the audience to become better informed about HIV/AIDS and reduce HIV-related stigma.  The campaign’s message of hope and positive action is being broadcast in 13 nations by members of the Latin America Media AIDS Initiative (or IMLAS, its Spanish acronym)—a regional partnership of the Global Media AIDS Initiative (GMAI).

PASION POR LA VIDA / PAIXAO PELA VIDA profiles thirteen HIV-positive individuals from across Latin America who share both a passion for life and a desire to end the spread of the disease.  They are musicians, poets, academics, and shopkeepers—everyday people who share their experience living with HIV. Shot in five cities across the region, the documentary-style public service ads (PSAs) aim to create a personal connection to HIV/AIDS among the audience and engender the feeling that HIV/AIDS could affect “people like me and those I care about.”  In the first wave of the campaign, which debuts this week, audiences will meet Alejandro, a 20-year old musician; Maripaz, a mother living in the Salvadoran jungle; Rachel, a vibrant businesswoman; Robert, a professor and author.  The campaign was conceptualized by IMLAS with guidance from media practitioners, HIV experts and people living with HIV/AIDS, and was produced by the ONYX.la production company, the DON agency and WeArePacheco, winners of 7 Lions Awards at the 2009 Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival.

According to the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), Latin America is the third most affected region in the world, with 1.7 million people living with HIV at the end of 2007. An estimated 140,000 people in the region were infected by HIV in 2007, and 60,000 died as a result of AIDS. An estimated 65% of those currently living with HIV or AIDS in the region do not know it.

“PAIXAO PELA VIDA is not a campaign of one broadcaster or one country,” noted Amauri Soares, CEO Of Globo International and member of the GMAI’s International Advisory Board.  “As the first media-led AIDS education effort to span the entire Latin American region, PAIXAO PELA VIDA will involve major broadcasters in every country working together, across different media but with unified messages and a shared approach, to help turn back this disease and protect the health of our young people.”  TV Globo is a founding member of IMLAS and assisted with the production of the campaign spots in Brazil.

PASION POR LA VIDA / PAIXAO PELA VIDA campaign is a multi-platform approach that extends HIV/AIDS content across programming platforms and genres. All campaign programming encourages listeners and viewers to visit a new bilingual website (www.pasionporlavida.org or www.paixaopelavida.org) to find information, local resources, and personal stories on HIV/AIDS and related issues.  The comprehensive website also includes extended interviews with each of the individuals profiled in the campaign, behind-the-scenes footage from the campaign shoot, and interactive applications, including online games, trivia and polls.

Through the Latin America Media Partnership on HIV/AIDS (IMLAS), media houses across Latin America share information and resources, including rights-free programming on HIV/AIDS, in a joint effort to significantly expand HIV awareness across the region.  PASION POR LA VIDA / PAIXAO PELA VIDA represents the Partnership’s first shared set of programming content, which will be aired across the region as part of each media company’s commitment to IMLAS.  The campaign will be aired by IMLAS member broadcasters in Argentina, Bolivia, Brasil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, México, Nicaragua, Panamá, Perú, Uruguay and Venezuela. All broadcasters of the region are welcome to join the campaign. The campaign is also being distributed in the United States.

“PASION POR LA VIDA marks an important milestone in the fight against HIV/AIDS in Latin America, as the first media-led regional effort to bring our countries together in response to the disease,” stated Dr. Pedro Cahn, Former Chairman of the International AIDS Society and President of Fundación Huésped, which manages day-to-day operations for IMLAS. “The passion and courage demonstrated by the individuals featured in the campaign’s first set of PSAs reminds us that AIDS does not discriminate, and that we’re all equal in front of this disease.”

“This important coalition of media across Latin America offers an unprecedented opportunity to reach audiences across the region with information, direct people to resources, and to challenge stereotypes and misperceptions,” said Drew Altman, President and CEO of the Kaiser Family Foundation, which established the Global Media AIDS Initiative in 2004 in partnership with UNAIDS to mobilize the world’s media industry. Kaiser also provides ongoing strategic support and creative direction to IMLAS.

Last year, Mexico City hosted the XVII International AIDS Conference, during which UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and Mexican President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa called on global leaders to focus attention and resources on the global AIDS crisis, including the often overlooked, but growing, pandemic in Latin America.  In response, media executives across Central and South America have joined together to create new, coordinated media initiatives to help stem the spread of HIV and fight AIDS-related stigma and discrimination in the region.

“As a partner of the Latin American Media AIDS Initiative, UNICEF attempts to reach the minds and hearts of people, especially young people, with the objective of making changes and encouraging them to talk openly about HIV/AIDS so as to create a renewed sense of union as a response to the epidemics,” stated Bernt Aasen, UNICEF Regional Director fro Latin America and the Caribbean.  “To challenge the stigma and discrimination HIV is surrounded with, UNICEF supports IMLAS in its attempt to invite everyone to commit and to express a ‘Passion for Life’ (Pasión por la vida),” he added.

"Many people believe that living with HIV is a death sentence, that it implies a senseless existence, and not being able to live or to enjoy in the same way other people do.  Nothing is more wrong.  People with HIV are really passionate about life.  This is why ’Pasión por la Vida’ helps us destroy myths, to promote respect and ensure the rights of those of us who live with AIDS,” noted Rubén Pechio, Regional Secretary of the Latin American Network of People Living with HIV (RedLa+), that together with other community organizations of experts from the civil society cooperated in the development of the campaign’s message. 

“The ’Pasión por la Vida’ campaign will undoubtedly become an important contribution to reduce stigma and discrimination toward people living with HIV by briefly showing the life story of people we may come across at any time in the street.  It also shows a strategic partnership in action as well as corporate responsibility by including important media companies in the regional and national efforts aimed at stemming the impactt of HIV/AIDS,” said Javier Hourcade Bellocq, Regional Representative of the International HIV/AIDS Alliance.

To commemorate the World AIDS Day on December 1st, as a part of the campaign, IMLAS will offer different fictional and documentary features that will be distributed rights-free among its broadcast members.

About IMLAS

Launched in early 2009, the Latin America Media AIDS Initiative (IMLAS) unites top broadcasters in the region’s first coordinated media response to the pandemic.  The Partnership creates a structured framework for sharing information and resources among broadcasters that significantly expands HIV/AIDS-related programming and public education activities across Central and South America.  The founding members include Canal 13 (Argentina), Ecuavisa (Ecuador), TC Televisión (Ecuador), Telefe (Argentina), Televisa (Mexico), TV Azteca (Mexico), and TV Globo (Brazil).  IMLAS was constituted within the Global Media AIDS Intiative (GMAI). Fundación Huésped, a non-governmental organization based in Buenos Aires, provides day-to-day operational support for IMLAS, with strategic support from the Kaiser Family Foundation, UNICEF and a number strategic allies within the regional HIV/AIDS community.  For further information, please visit: www.imlasida.org

About the Global Media AIDS Initiative

Launched in 2004 by former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in coordination with the Kaiser Family Foundation and UNAIDS, the Global Media AIDS Initiative (GMAI) mobilizes leading media companies around the world to leverage their vast resources to address AIDS.  Through large-scale regional coalitions of media—a network that includes more than 300 media companies—the GMAI leverages the communication power of mass media to get out information about HIV and challenge stigma related to the disease.  As Secretariat of the GMAI since 2007, the Kaiser Family Foundation provides strategic and operational direction.  The GMAI receives additional financial support from the Ford Foundation and the Elton John AIDS Foundation.  For more information, visit: www.thegmai.org.

About Fundación Huésped

Fundación Huésped is an Argentinean organization that since 1989 works in the responses to HIV/AIDS not only as a biological or just an infectious pandemic but as a pervasive social issue.  Their goals include to increase access to, and dissemination of, prevention information and education; to facilitate research and furtherance of education for health professionals; and to improve infrastructure for wider availability of social services for those in need. For more information, visit: www.huesped.org.ar.

About the Kaiser Family Foundation

The Kaiser Family Foundation is a non-profit private operating foundation, based in Menlo Park, California, dedicated to producing and communicating the best possible information, research and analysis on health issues. It is not associated with Kaiser Permanente or Kaiser Industries.  Information on HIV/AIDS, global health and Kaiser’s public education partnerships with entertainment media is available at www.kff.org.