Beats for Life - ViiV Healthcare effect

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The Need
Overview
Goals
Support from Lina van de Mars
And the Winner Is...
The Impact
Lessons Learned

Uli Meurer, Founder, Netzwerk Plus

Hello, my name is Uli Meurer and I am founder and former member of the board of Netzwerk Plus (the German Network of People Living with HIV and AIDS). Netzwerk Plus is a nationwide network that encourages people living with HIV to advocate for their rights. In addition to this, we run public awareness campaigns to decrease stigma and discrimination around AIDS and HIV and to educate people throughout Germany about HIV prevention, testing and available support services.

We have known about Positive Action for a number of years and really respect its commitment to innovative community projects. Today, I would like to tell you about our “Beats for Life” campaign, one of the initiatives supported by the Positive Action programme.

The Need

While most people in Germany know something about HIV and AIDS, many people are not aware of how real the risk is – this is especially true among younger people, a demographic group which now has one of the highest rates of new infections. The lack of awareness has led to stigma and discrimination, the consequence being that many people living with HIV feel they cannot openly discuss their condition.

We need to get the topic of HIV and AIDS back on the table, and stop the younger generation feeling they are invincible. If we open up discussion in this group, we can increase the number of people getting tested and we can increase the number of people accessing treatment and support. In order for this to work, we need to reach out to young people in ways that are relatable and relevant to their daily lives.

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English Transcript

“The media and some of the pharmaceutical companies tend to play the real risk of HIV down. Most people nowadays believe that AIDS could be cured and is not any longer necessary to protect themselves and their partners, as a medical treatment is available. They have to learn that AIDS is still a deadly disease, with a very complicated treatment, with many side effects but there's no cure and therefore it's still existentially necessary to protect themselves against possible infection, or if you are infected to know about your infection therefore, so that you could start and go to treatment, and have a chance to live longer than without a treatment.” - Uli Meurer, Netzwerk Plus

Deutsch Transkript

“Die Medien, und auch leider einige der pharmazeutischen Firmen, neigen ja dazu die Risiken von HIV zu verharmlosen. Zu sagen, es gibt eine Behandlung, und die Behandlung ist gut – dadurch verliert sich dann auch der Zwang oder der Druck der Menschen sich um Schutz, um Aufklaerung um Informationen, um medizinische Behandlung zu kuemmern. Und das was wir wollen in der AIDS-Hilfe und auch mit dem Programm “Beats for life” ist, dieses Bewusstsein wieder zu stärken, das Bewusstsein sich schuetzen zu muessen, das Bewusstsein, dass AIDS nach wie vor eine zwar behandelbare, aber toedlich verlaufende Krankheit ist.” - Uli Meurer, Netzwerk Plus

Overview

The Beats for Life campaign is a fresh and modern approach to tackling the challenges presented by the HIV epidemic in Germany. Young people's lives are strongly connected to music, and so the campaign uses this medium to reach them.

The campaign invites 16 to 30 year olds to write and submit songs about HIV and AIDS, which they can upload as video or audio files onto the Beats for Life website. A panel of experts has been convened to judge the entries, and the winners and runners up will be presented with awards of 3,000, 2,000 and 1,000 euros, respectively. This initiative puts the entries at the heart of the campaign, engaging song writers and others in the subject matter. It allows young people to discuss a serious problem through a creative outlet.

We’ve publicised the competition primarily through social media. Using Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites as communication platforms, we’ve set up dedicated user-groups and spread the message virally. Radio advertisements and songs promoting the contest have also been an integral part of the media campaign.

Goals

The goals of the Beats for Life campaign are to...

Inform young people about HIV and AIDS
Inform young people about the challenges faced by people living with HIV and AIDS
Promote safe sex and HIV testing

Support from Lina van de Mars

The campaign involves a number of well known German celebrities, one of these being Lina van de Mars

A Conversation with Lina van de Mars

Hi Lina, can you briefly introduce yourself
and what you do...

My name is Lina van de Mars. I am 31 years old and I live
in Berlin. I’m a tech mechanic, car mechanic and I have been
on air on TV the past eight years. I am mainly known as a host for car
shows and race car shows but I also have been a musician and I think I always will be a musician and yes I am working on my new album. My band is called ‘The Pumps’ and I’m a drummer mainly but also write my own music.

Antwort lesen in Deutsch

Deutsch Transkript

Mein Name ist Lina van de Mars. Ich bin einunddreißig Jahre alt; ich wohne in Berlin. Die meisten kennen mich wahrscheinlich als Fernsehmoderatorin aus Autosendungen und ja ich bin auch Rennsport-Moderatorin. Meine zweite Liebe ist aber die Musik. Ich bin schon lange Jahren als Schlagsängerin tätig, arbeite momentan an meiner eigenen Platte: Die Pumpe

What makes the Beats for Life campaign innovative?

So the most innovative components of Beats for Life and like my opinion are like for example it is a very active campaign that we make competing persons become members of the campaign. You can express your own thinking, your own lifestyle, your own thoughts towards HIV, towards AIDS and yes I think that makes it very special.

Antwort lesen in Deutsch

Deutsch Transkript

Ich bin der Meinung, dass Beats for Life sehr innovativ, sehr fortschrittlich ist. Da sie eben eine sehr aktive Kampagne ist. Die Musiker, die gegen einander antreten, sie [haben] ein Teil von Beat for Life, können sich wirklich ausdrücken, können ihre Gefühle widerspiegeln, und können sich aktiv mit dem Thema beschäftigen, und das, finde ich, macht das ganze zu etwas Besonderem

Why does this campaign focus on young people?

So like those people who can hand in their songs I think it is like musicians aged 16 to 30 but I think that Beats for Life is for everybody no matter how old you are. If you are gay, not gay, if you are male or female, if you are an artist or like a mother, or working at the bakery. So I think that everybody should deal with Beats for Life, should maybe come to the concert or like go online check it out and tell your friends about it.

Antwort lesen in Deutsch

Deutsch Transkript

Die Musiker, die bei Beats for Life mitmachen können, die sich für die Messe-Welt anmelden können, sollten sechzehn bis dreißig Jahre alt sein, egal ob bei einer Band [UI] oder Einzelperformer. Ich bin aber der Meinung, dass Beats for Life auch für Menschen jeden Alters ist, egal ob du schwul bist oder nicht schwul bist, ob du ein Mann oder eine Frau

The Beats for Life campaign is about to wake up young people mainly age 16 to 30 to start thinking about the danger of HIV again. And to also become an active part of the campaign as a musician, as the performer, as the writer and to participate we’re handing in songs and, yes, my role is — I’m a judge and jury, and I will be listening to the competing songs and hopefully find a nice winner that will for sure win an awesome prize.

Antwort lesen in Deutsch

Deutsch Transkript

Die Beats for Life Kampagne ist dazu da, junge Leute, vor allem im Alter von 16 bis 30 wieder aufzurütteln, darüber nachzudenken, dass HIV, also AIDS immer noch Tagesthema ist, noch nicht verschwunden ist, und ja und ihr könnt als Musiker ein aktives Mitglied werden. von Beat for Life und ihr könnt etwas performen, ihr könnt ein Lied schreiben und könnt es dann einreichen. Und mein Part in der ganzen Geschichte ist: ich bin Jury-Mitglied, ich hör’ mir die dann an. Wir werden dann hoffentlich einen tollen Gewinner finden, der dann noch tollere Preise gewinnen kann.

And the Winner Is...

The winner of the Beats for Life campaign was announced on the 26 August 2011, at the HIV in Dialogue Congress, Berlin. You can hear the winning song on the Beats for Life website.

http://www.beatsforlife.de/home.html

The Impact

Support from celebrities such as Lina van de Mars has really raised the profile of this project, with people across Germany blogging and tweeting about it, and directing friends to the website and Facebook page.

As of August 2011, more than 1,000 people “liked” the Beats for Life Facebook page and it was visited by more than 100,000 people.

Visit the Beats for Life Facebook page

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English Transcript

“So Beats for Life so far got a big response. I also tried to connect it to my homepage, to Twitter, to Facebook to really show people that it is happening and that they also have a chance to become a part of it. And so far there has not been a single person who did not like it, or was not interested in it, and I think that is something very special and yes good for me, good for us.” - Lina van de Mars

Deutsch Transkript

“Die Beat for Life Kampagne geht ja jetzt tauffrisch los. Ich habe Beat for Life mit meiner Home Page verknüpt, mit Twitter, mit Facebook. Und was ich ganz ganz toll finde Es gab bisher wirklich nur positive Resonanz, keiner der das irgendwie schlecht fand. Warum denn auch? Sondern eher Leute, die jetzt sich aufgerufen fühlen mitzumachen und vielleicht sogar noch Dank einreichen, und das finde ich echt ganz ganz klasse!” - Lina van de Mars

Lessons Learned

My colleagues and I have found the positive response to the Beats for Life campaign really encouraging. It has taught us is that if you communicate with target demographic groups in the right way you can really engage them in talking about HIV and AIDS, and start to change the dialogue.

We also really value and respect the roles that our collaborations have played in this campaign. Partnership has been such an important factor for success, in this case with other HIV advocacy organisations, supporting celebrities and artistes, and the Positive Action programme.

Learn more about the Positive Action Community Grants programme, here.

Fact File

Project name:
Beats for Life

Run by:
Netzwork Plus and ViiV Healthcare Germany

Region:
Germany

Population:
Young people

Challenges:
Lack of awareness, stigma and discrimination

Activities:
Social media outreach, music competition

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