A new HIV-education campaign targeting the Latino community was honored by the city this week.
POSITIVO, which launched last month from GALAEI: A queer [email protected] Social Justice Organization, is a social-media and photo campaign highlighting members of the Latino community who detail their support of those living with HIV/AIDS and the LGBT community.
City Councilwoman María Quiñones-Sánchez on Wednesday night gave GALAEI, the campaign and the subjects of the five photos commendations for their efforts at the agency’s Center City headquarters.
“We wanted to recognize the folks who really stepped up to the plate to be a part of this media campaign, whether they were HIV-positive people or not,” Quiñones-Sánchez told PGN this week. “The campaign looks to promote a more positive image about people coming forward and getting tested and we wanted to honor that.”
The campaign launched Sept. 8 at Feria del Barrio, a Latino street festival in North Philadelphia. It is the first campaign of its kind in the state that uses local Latino community members to communicate affirming messages about LGBT and HIV-positive community members.
The campaign distributed 1,000 posters and 10,000 postcards throughout North Philadelphia, and took to social-media sites like Facebook and Twitter. It is also an interactive campaign that invites community members to share their own stories of being “POSITIVO.”
Quiñones-Sánchez said that, while there has been rapid progress in destigmatizing the LGBT and HIV/AIDS populations in recent years, efforts like POSITIVO can help further that evolution in the Latino and other communities.
“While there have been great strides in the Latino community, particularly in the last few years, we are working every single day to demystify the stigma attached to [HIV/AIDS], particularly with young LGBT folks,” she said. “And also on the education side, this campaign shows the importance of testing, both proactively and then also the importance of supporting folks who may be HIV-positive. Everybody knows someone now who is either positive or who is LGBT. So we want to turn this into a positive discussion about what’s going on in our communities.”
For more information, visit www.facebook.com/galaei.philly.
