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AHF: 'One Community' Billboards Celebrate Fellowship of HIV+ and HIV- Gay MenLOS ANGELES --(Business Wire)-- AIDS Healthcare Foundation is continuing to take HIV stigma head-on-this time, potentially divisive stigma in the gay community over an individual's HIV-status-with a new 'One Community,' billboard campaign that started running this week in L.A. and New York in both English and Spanish. The billboards feature a line of self-identified HIV-positive and HIV-negative gay men with colorful body-paint T-shirts lettered with their respective HIV sero-status across their chests. "Our 'One Community' billboard campaign is an extension of a multi-faceted anti-HIV stigma campaign that AHF has been undertaking over the past few years, with this arm specifically targeting gay men with a message of fellowship, celebration and inclusion regardless of one's HIV status," said Whitney Engeran-Cordova, Senior Director of AIDS Healthcare Foundation's Public Health Division. "Lined up side-by-side, the colors of the men's bodypainted chests form the iconic gay rainbow. Taken together with the message on their chests-their individual HIV status-I find this to be an incredibly simple, yet powerful message, one we hope will help break down barriers and foster a greater sense of community." The 'One Community' billboard campaign is an extension of a multi-faceted anti HIV stigma campaign that AHF has been undertaking over the past few years. 'One Community' billboards and transit shelter ads have started running in Brooklyn, New York, where AHF runs an AHF Pharmacy, an Out of the Closet store and free HIV testing program as well as in Los Angeles earlier this week. AHF has also recently been running another billboard campaign addressing HIV stigma. Headlined, 'God Loves HIV+ Me,' each billboard features HIV-positive individuals in bright red T-shirts reading 'HIV+' across the front. The photos of the subjects-Hydeia Broadbent, an HIV/AIDS activist who has been HIV-positive since her birth 30 years ago, and Stone, another HIV/AIDS advocate-are bracketed by the text 'God Loves' and 'Me' on each side, making these HIV-positive individuals part of the billboard headline in powerful, stigma-shattering imagery. About AIDS Healthcare Foundation AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the largest global AIDS organization, currently provides medical care and/or services to more than 348,000 individuals in 36 countries worldwide in the US, Africa, Latin America/Caribbean, the Asia/Pacific Region and Eastern Europe. To learn more about AHF, please visit our website: www.aidshealth.org, find us on Facebook (News - Alert): www.facebook.com/aidshealth and follow us on Twitter (News - Alert): @aidshealthcare.
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