Skip to content

Welcome to the website
of the social impact media campaign
“See What Matters”

This campaign was developed in close cooperation with women living with HIV in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. 

In 2022, we conducted a survey among women living with HIV, most vulnerable to HIV and affected by HIV (including the mothers of children with HIV), showing the challenges they face in their daily lives. Based on these responses, we created a media campaign in the “animadoc” style, which allowed us to combine artistic elements with realistic ones. Here we use direct quotes of the women involved, photographs of their eyes, and their real voices in national languages as a voiceover.

The campaign materials are freely available in English/ Russian, as well as Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Uzbek, and Ukrainian languages, and include videos and other materials that can be used for online and offline promotion. You can find them by clicking on the links below. 

The “See What Matters” campaign was developed in the scope of the project “Combating stigma to end HIV/AIDS in EECA”, implemented by the AFEW Partnership in collaboration with organisations and communities of women living with HIV, with financial support from Gilead.

#SeeWhatMatters

Press Release

“SEE WHAT MATTERS”

Public awareness campaign «See what matters» is a part of the project “Combating stigma to end HIV/AIDS in Eastern Europe and Central Asia (EECA)”. 

Background

Stigma and discrimination against people living with HIV continue to exist and affect various areas of human life, thereby creating barriers and obstacles to HIV prevention and treatment and seriously reducing the overall quality of life of those affected by the disease.

Self-stigma of PLHIV remains the most pressing issue for EECA countries. Findings from studies conducted in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Ukraine and Uzbekistan showed a high level of self stigma among people living with HIV: 81.3%-91.2% of PLHIV surveyed conceal their HIV-positive status from others, half of respondents feel guilt and shame about their HIV status.

HIV infection is still associated with “inappropriate sexual behavior” and belonging to marginalized populations. Women are the most susceptible to HIV-related stigma.  HIV stigma in women is associated with rejection by family and friends, society, feelings of insecurity and loss, low self-esteem, fear, anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts and even suicide attempts

To reduce the self-stigma of women living with HIV and affected by HIV and to change societal attitudes towards them through reducing social stigma, AFEW Partnership developed the project “Combating stigma to end HIV/AIDS in Eastern Europe and Central Asia (EECA)”. 

Media campaign 

The media campaign includes videos and images for online and offline usage. All the materials were created in close collaboration with local communities and based on the results of comprehensive community-based participatory research conducted in the EECA region. 

Supported by Gilead’s Zeroing In: Ending the HIV Epidemic (EHE) program.

Alexandra Lee #SeeWhatMatters Campaign Coordinator in Kazakhstan, AFEW Kazakhstan Project Manager
Read More
As one of the project participants noted, we developed the info campaign on a very important socially relevant topic. We tried to show the world through the eyes of a woman living with HIV, that she also has feelings, fears, that she wants to be understood and accepted. Perhaps, people who watched our videos will say those important words: ‘I am here’, and if someone’s situation changes just a little bit – that’s already a victory.
Yulia Komo (Koval-Molodtsova)Coordinator of the #SeeWhatMatters campaign, AFEW International
Read More
The need to reduce stigma and discrimination against women, especially in our region, is very high. The main message of the campaign is to see a woman with HIV not as her diagnosis, but first of all as an ordinary person, with her fears and dreams. We wanted to show her emotions, experiences and successes. The diagnosis is not the main thing, the main thing is who you are and how you build the world around you.
Natalya ShumskayaCoordinator of the #SeeWhatMatters campaign in Kyrgyzstan, Director of AFEW in Kyrgyzstan
Read More
This project gave us an opportunity to mobilise the community of women living with HIV (WLHIV) in Kyrgyzstan from all regions, districts, cities and villages. We met more than 60 WLHIV and felt their difficult fates and admired their courage and resilience. For us, they are the heroes of our time.
Vera Varygaboard member of Positive Women, coordinator of the #SeeWhatMatters campaign in Ukraine
Read More
The need for such a media campaign in the community of women living with HIV in Ukraine has been there for a long time, and we are very happy finally to have it. Especially now, in the context of war, when women with children are forced to move in search of safer places, to have new contacts in health services, in society and in everyday life.
Previous
Next

Download campaign materials