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Let's be friendsInspiring people to leave video messages
A great campaign gets people talking. Catch people’s interest with stunts around your school, college or university, so they want to find out more.
Below you will find some ideas to get you going:
It’s no good having an amazing set up and informative waiting room if no-one is going to turn up and leave messages. Why not put on an inspiring event or stunt and use it to introduce the issue and insentive to take action. Events should focus on the injustice of the AIDS crisis and its political solutions, in order to encourage people to leave messages.
On World AIDS Day in 2005 Aberyswyth University P&P group sent ‘Tony Blair’ around campus to meet people. He was pursued by giant eyeballs who were ‘watching’ him to see if he kept his promise on access to AIDS treatment.
At The Secret Garden Party festival 2006 Tony Blair ran off with a box of ‘essential medcine’, chased by doctors and nurses.
Gravestones.
Cut out 120 gravestones and arrange them somewhere central on campus. Make a sign saying these graves represent the number of people who will die from AIDS in the next 20 minutes. Access to treatment could have extended their lives by 20 years.
Circles of Impact.
Make a giant display to demonstrate the impact that AIDS has on communities. Have a number of different circles, each inside the other. The inner circle represents the person who has died from AIDS. The radiating circles represent people they know and the way their death impacts on these people. For example, the children orphaned by AIDS, the elderly relatives that no longer have anyone to look after them, or a relative that has to look after the orphaned children. Then, the wider community that is affected, a neighbour who has lost a friend, a child who can no longer afford to go to school, a church that has lost a dedicated choir singer. Wider still, the school pupils that have lost a teacher, patients that have lost a nurse, and the damage to the economy. Whatever you do, don’t forget to tell your MP about it, so they can come along and support the campaign!
Drugstore
Make a campaign stall more interesting by setting it up as a mock drug-store. Stand behind it and advertise your wares like a market trader. You could ice cakes or biscuits in red and white so they look like pills.
Hold an ‘un-fair’.
An ‘un-fair’ is a fun way to demonstrate the injustice of access to AIDS treatment.
Obstacle course: Dress up as pills (make a costume by cutting two giant pill shapes out of cardboard, paint them to look like pills, and tie them together over your shoulders and around your waist). In your costumes, attempt a hurdle race. Label your hurdles to represent the barriers to affordable treatment.
A pill-shy: like a coconut shy, but with pills instead of coconuts. Give players representing rich countries a basketball to knock the pills over with, and poor countries ping-pong balls. An unlucky dip: where most people end up with nothing.
Getting attention
Hang ‘pills’ up from tree branches or high ceilings - anywhere where they will be out of reach!
Put some barriers up, or notices across doorways, labelled `NO ACCESS´ (but make sure you are not blocking any emergency exits or causing a hazard to yourself).
Advertise your stall or event with intriguing signs like those on the right.
Balcaras School make a human red ribbon for World AIDS Day 2005
Sheffield P&P group take action on World AIDS Day 2005
LSE P&P lobbied Hilary Benn on World AIDS Day
Other ideas
Run a Treat AIDS Now clubnight or party where people have to sign an action card to get in (and perhaps are encouraged to dress as doctors and nurses).
Invite speakers, or organise a debate
Show a film or host an exhibition
Hold a vigil.
Have a speaker event. Contact the P&P office for speaker ideas and contact details: 01865 245678 or email treataidsnow@peopleandplanet.org
Hold a non-uniform day, and ask people to leave a video message in order to participate.
Invite your local MP to participate in a mock parliamentary debate or question time.
Don’t forget to send the P&P Support Office details and photos of your campaigning so we can put them up on the P&P website and give ideas and inspiration to other groups and individuals.
Email treataidsnow@peopleandplanet.org
