PCI-Media Impact Strengthens HIV/AIDS Initiative in Peru

Projects to Focus on Interior Cities, Intergenerational Needs

October 9, 2006 - PCI-Media Impact (www.pci-mediaimpact.org), has announced that the success of its partnership in Peru has prompted the expansion of its entertainment programming to ten additional cities in the interior of the country. The radio broadcasts are designed to promote healthy changes in sexual behavior, reproductive rights, family planning and, most urgently, prevention of HIV/AIDS.

Target audiences have typically been men and women of reproductive age in Lima and other cities. The new series of broadcasts, to run through July 31 st, 2007, will be produced for audiences in Tacna, Arequipa, Huancayo, Casma, Chulucanas, Sullana, Ica, Iquitos, Chimbote and Piura and will build on programming pioneered last year aimed at fostering intergenerational dialogue.

“From the studies we’ve looked at the challenge in Peru is not necessarily to increase awareness of HIV/AIDS but to remove the obstacles to care and prevention. For example, a lot of people are deterred from taking an AIDS test to avoid discrimination,” said Michael Castlen, Executive Director of PCI-Media Impact. “We’ve also seen that in many cases parents think they can transfer their responsibility to the education system and in so doing fail to orient their children in sexual education. We want this project to get the parents and younger people talking in concrete ways so they can make decisions about situations that put them at risk,” Castlen added.

PCI-Media Impact’s partner in Peru is Calandria Association of Social Communicators ( www.calandria.org.pe), an organization that uses communication socially, politically, and economically in an effort to impact Peru 's development. Calandria Association of Social Communicators is responsible for ensuring that each radio project complies with PCI-Media Impact’s standards of finding and training local producers and journalists to create effective, high quality Entertainment-Education radio broadcasts.

Since 2004, in alliance with PCI-Media Impact, Calandria has developed two radio Entertainment- Education projects, ‘Loma Luna (Moon Hill)’ in 2004-05 and ‘Empezando A Vivir (Beginning to Live)’ in 2005-06. P roductions have included music, serial dramas, and a live call-in session between listeners and guest experts who addressed sexual and reproductive health and other issues. In some cities ‘Empezando A Vivir’ was not only produced with messaging that promotes intergenerational dialogue but even utilized intergenerational production teams.

We believe that training local writers and producers to serve the needs of their communities in this way creates an incubator environment,” said Castlen. “The goal is to support these talented people now and teach them how to continue to reach and inform their communities for years to come. We provide them with tools they never had before.”

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