Reaching Millions with a Lifesaving Meage

How do you get critical health information to millions of people who may not have any interest in what you have to say? Make it fun and engaging by infusing that information into a great movie that millions of people want to watch. By Aric Noboa

Art - especially media - is both a reflection and a driver of culture. Discovery Learning Alliance (DLA) uses this power to transform education and improve lives in marginalized communities around the world. DLA produces videos that educate children, and that also help communities get more involved in school and address issues such as health, girls education and the environment.

Around the world, more than 35 million people are living with HIV. Despite the fact that transmission is preventable, about 2.1 million people were infected with HIV in 2013. The majority of the worlds HIV burden is in sub-Saharan Africa, where an estimated 24.7 million people are living with the virus.

DLA made the feature film Inside Story to educate the sub-Saharan public about the science of HIV, so they can make healthy decisions. Inside Story was created to combat two of the main challenges in HIV prevention and treatment: misunderstandings about how HIV works, and HIV message fatigue.

The film uses storytelling in order to unravel the mysteries of HIV. With state-of-the-art animation, Inside Story explores the inner world of the human body, revealing the unseen aspects of HIV - what the moment of infection looks like, how condoms prevent the spread of HIV, and how ARVs work.

As a testament to the power of high-quality African media, Inside Story has become the most widely seen film ever in Africa.

Our goal was to help people understand how HIV works so they can make better decisions: getting tested, using condoms, thinking about sexual networks, said Aric Noboa, president of DLA and producer of Inside Story. The difference, we hope, is that were taking a descriptive rather than a prescriptive approach.

Rather than telling people what to do or not do, were trying to give people information they can use so they understand the reasoning behind their decisions, said Noboa. We found overwhelming anecdotal evidence that said when people understand the why behind public health messages, theyre more inclined to own and sustain their health decisions.

Inside Story was broadcast on 41 television networks around the world to more than 300 million viewers in multiple languages. It was also screened at 16 film festivals, winning four best feature awards, and had major premieres in Johannesburg, Lagos, Nairobi, Kenya, and Washington, D.C. The film is now being distributed across the continent by Management Sciences for Health.

Ambassador Eric Goosby, former U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator, called Inside Story a valuable tool to inform people across Africa and the world about the science of HIV. LA Weekly called it a rousing success. The Standard (Kenya) called it a sit on the edge of your seat, hanky in hand treat.

To gauge the impact of the film, audience members were interviewed before and after viewings. The overwhelming majority of viewers felt that Inside Storywas relevant to their experience. Through this connection, viewers are able to better retain educational information about HIV and safe sex from the film. For example, almost all viewers felt they were more likely to use a condom during sex after watching the film.

It will make us understand better, said a young South African man who sawInside Story. If you understand the origin of something, youre going to understand better how to deal with this HIV/AIDS.

Along with mass media initiatives like Inside Story, DLA uses school-based interventions to increase student learning, teacher effectiveness and community engagement in schools. DLAs video programming is developed through a collaborative process that includes local educators and curriculum experts, creating high-quality content which is then mapped to local curricula. Teachers are trained on student-centered learning, gender-responsive pedagogy, twenty-first century teaching and learning, and how to use media as an educational tool to improve student learning.

Following on the success of Inside Story, requests have come in for DLA to create a new feature film about tuberculosis (TB). TB, which is caused by bacteria and spread through the air by coughing and sneezing, is both preventable and curable. One third of the worlds population is infected with TB. In 2013, nine million people became ill with it and a million and a half died. TB is the leading cause of death in people living with HIV.

DLA is already researching the story with Quizzical Pictures and Management Sciences for Health, and will soon be developing the script.

This will be an African movie for African audiences, set in the context of southern African life and values. As with Inside Story, the new film will take viewers on a journey through both live action and animation - showing audiences TB in a way theyve never seen before.

Aric Noboa is President of Discovery Learning Alliance.

Any views expressed in this article are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.

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