‘Buladi’ set to go rural with AIDS message

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`Buladi' set to go rural with AIDS message

40% of state's HIV-affected being villagers, govt plans to broadbase

popular icon's appeal

Ravik Bhattacharya

Kolkata, August 28: BULADI, the iconic message used by the state

government in its anti-HIV/AIDS campaign, is now set to hit

villages.

Confined till now to the city, National Aids Control Organisation

(NACO) and the government has decided to send `Buladi' to villages,

for 40 per cent of the state's HIV-afflicted people are rural folks,

if statistics are to be believed.

Statistics also say village women have the lowest awareness level

about the killer virus.

As per the two-pronged strategy, folk entertainment like puppet

show, yatras and fairs will be organised to spread the message,

while post offices and panchayats will also be used for a sustained

awareness campaign to propagate safe sex. The project will initially

be taken up at 3,300 village panchayats and 341 blocks, R S Shukla,

project director of state HIV-AIDS Prevention and Control Society,

said.

State Health department officials recently discussed the strategy to

spread Buladi's message at the village level in a meeting with

Ogilvy and Mather, the advertising agency that created the icon.

The entire project, however, is still " in a nascent stage, and

details need to be worked out, " Shukla said.

A top Health department official said: " AIDS is no more confined to

urban areas, nor is it segregated to particular sections like sex

workers, truck drivers and others. So, a campaign to spread message

about the disease, and ways of prevention, has become necessary.

" And what better way than taking up the Buladi campaign in

villages? "

According to Health department officials, while post offices will be

utilised for the advertisement campaign, walls of government

buildings like panchayat offices will be painted with `Buladi'

messages. Community halls, chandi mandaps (drawing rooms) in

villages that serve as a watering hole for the village folk will

also bear boards and hoardings about the dreaded virus.

Village panchayats will play an active role in the campaign and

talks are at present on with Panchayat members, officials said.

Even local dhakis, bands and ethnic dance troupes are being roped in

to spread the message through `Buladi', officials said.

" The Buladi icon will undergo a change of dress and language used in

getting her message across, " the Health official said. " We are

talking to the agency (O & M) to make the language as easy as

possible, so that common villagers can grasp it. "

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