During the month of December 2022, Young Generation Alive (YGA) and a team of HIV/AIDS Social Media Influencers /Advocates run a social media campaign on HIV/AIDS stigma. With support from IAS Education Fund, this project aimed to reduce HIV treatment/prevention-related stigma among adolescents and young people; by creating awareness about HIV/AIDS testing, treatment, care and prevention service like ART, PEP, PrEP, U=U among others).
According to Charles Kiganda, the Youth Trials Board Coordinator this was the first social media campaign undertaken by the YGA. He is confident that this is first of many to come. ‘’Continuous advocacy which is involves utilizing the space where young people are largely found through meaningful engagement to address HIV related stigma using the virtual platform’’ has seen a great impact to create the awareness using the social media space for example twitter, Instalgram, Facebook to respond to key issues at families, schools and communities at large. The comments, tweets, retweets and likes from the people the young people created a great impact to expand the reach to many young people for anti-stigma campaign hence expanding the reach and curbing stigma,’’ says Charles Kiganda. The social media campaign which kicked of on 1st December 2022, was climaxed on the 20th Jan 2023 with a public activation exercise that involved volunteers displaying anti-HIV Stigma messages at three busy city roundabouts in Kampala. This campaign was sponsored by the International AIDS Society (IAS).