Spotlight Story

Story Workshop Carries Out Campaign For National HIV Testing Week

10th August 2006 - Daphne Gondwe’s husband was sick – and getting sicker. It was the late1990s in Malawi, and Daphne thought she knew the cause: HIV. She tried to convince her husband to go for an HIV test, but he refused. At this time, the stigma against having HIV was so great that many people preferred not to know whether they were positive. “What you don’t know can’t hurt you,” went the thinking.

But the truth was hurting Daphne and her husband. They constantly spent money on medical care, and he could no longer work. Daphne started imagining what would happen to the family if her husband died. In desperation, she tricked her husband into getting an HIV test, taking him to a clinic when he was so sick he couldn’t refuse.

Daphne’s husband was HIV positive, and so was Daphne. But instead of drowning in despair she managed to obtain anti-retroviral drugs for her husband. Today, he is still alive and much healthier. Daphne, thus far, is healthy as well, and has not yet needed drugs.

On July 13, Daphne shared her story with journalists and the country of Malawi during a radio program taping in Blantyre sponsored by the Story Workshop in support of National HIV Testing Week. As one of the many NGOs and government agencies nationwide supporting the week, Story Workshop teamed up with UNDP to spend July 17-22 focused on encouraging Malawians to find out their HIV status. 

Because only 15% of Malawians have been tested for HIV, Story Workshop’s weeklong campaign had to reach a broad swath of the public. More than 80% of the population listens to the radio, so the panel discussion that Daphne Gondwe participated in was broadcast on MBC-1, Malawi’s most popular radio station.

In addition to the panels, Story Workshop collected celebrity testimonials that promoted testing, including musicians-turned-politicians Lucius Banda and Billy Kaunda, broadcasting them on multiple radio stations around the country.

Original 5-minute Chichewa dramas promoting HIV testing were aired throughout the week on five different radio stations.

To reach the mobile population within cities, where HIV incidence is highest, Story Workshop also developed tapes called “Taxi Tunes,” which were distributed to minibus and taxi drivers in Blantyre and Lilongwe. Signs taped to the windows of minibuses advertised the airtimes of the Story Workshop panel discussion and dramas, and Story Workshop gave minibus drivers postcards to hand out to their passengers to give their thoughts on the campaign.

The tapes were also utilized at street festivals organized during the week by NGO Concern Universal.

Since Story Workshop received the go-ahead for the campaign less than two weeks before National Testing week began, it had to work fast and furious to pull of the project. In Blantyre a week before the campaign began, you could find Story Workshop writers developing stories late into the night, actors quickly learning lines, and staff making weekend visits to testing centers and minibus driver meetings to secure support for the campaign.

One night a week before the campaign, you would also have found Story Workshop staff perched at the gates of the national State House in Lilongwe, ready to pester catch MPs' testimonials on tape as they drove away from Parliament.    

But in the end, all the work was worth it. Three articles in three major papers – the Weekly News, the Nation and Daily Times – covered the panel discussion in full-page articles. Two Story Workshop staff members reported the heartening picture of minibus drivers at a Blantyre depot playing the tapes loudly and dancing to Story Workshop music. The radio campaign reached millions of Malawians with messages encouraging them to go for HIV testing. Postcards have now begun coming in by the package to our office from the minibus campaign. Story Workshop expects that the effects of the campaign will continue long after HIV Testing week has passed. 

Most important, the testing week activities were an example of government, donors and NGOs working together for the benefit of Malawians. More than 95,000 people went for testing during the week, according to government figures.