MARCH 2006 — An innovative new campaign is bringing a powerful HIV message to truckers and others along East Africa's Northern Transport Corridor.

The campaign, anchored by a series of bold billboards, uses traffic light imagery to convey the message: STOP, PREPARE YOURSELF and AVOID AIDS. It is designed to help truckers and other mobile populations make wise choices about sexual behavior to protect themselves and their families from HIV infection.

The campaign, launched March 2 in Djibouti and Jan. 23 in Kenya, is a public-private partnership that reflects important collaboration in the fight against HIV. In Kenya, for instance, the billboards are supported by the Kenyan Ministry of Transport, the National AIDS Control Program and the U.S. Agency for International Development, through its Regional Outreach Addressing AIDS through Development Strategies (ROADS) Project. ROADS, managed by Family Health International, is implementing the campaign. To best reach the campaign's target audiences, the billboards appear in accessible local languages, such as Kiswahili in Kenya and in French in Djibouti.

Minister of Transport Chirau Ali Mwakwere, the keynote speaker at the Kenya launch, told the crowd of 200 that the billboards strengthen important HIV messages, "such as the courage to ask for condoms as a prevention against infection, getting tested to know one's status, and talking openly about HIV/AIDS with family members and friends."

The Ministry of Transport, which has long recognized the important role the transport sector can play in national HIV prevention, erected the billboards along the Northern Transport Corridor, where they will be seen by thousands of drivers each day. But the campaign is much more than billboards. Trucks, matatus and other vehicles, including those contracted by the World Food Program (WFP), will soon begin carrying the campaign's message.

"There is no doubt that this is the right place, the right message and the right time," said U.S. Ambassador to Kenya William Bellamy. "I doubt anyone will be able to miss these bright, creative billboards as they travel through the transport corridors of Kenya and the region." Other speakers at the Kenya launch include USAID Kenya Director Stephen Haykin and Nicholas Mbugua, Chairman of the Kenya Long Distance Truck Drivers' Welfare Association.

The clever campaign was designed by the Program for Appropriate Technology in Health (PATH), which used focus groups to arrive at a design that drivers will respond to and understand quickly. PATH's Magnet Theatre troupe presented HIV educational dramas at the Kenya launch, a contingent from the Kenya Long Distance Truck Drivers' Welfare Association showed up in force, and the Solidarity Center arranged for traditional dancers to perform.

Photos: This especially large billboard was unveiled Jan. 23 on heavily trafficked Mombassa Road near Nairobi's Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. Photos by Steve Taravella.