HIV: Hey, It's Viral!

Short Synopsis

HIV: Hey, It’s Viral!, is a groundbreaking educational video documentary, accompanying DVD study/action resource guide, and teaching materials providing HIV education for teenagers and young adults. The project was created in collaboration with the Broadway Youth Center (BYC), the youth services arm of the Howard Brown Health Center, Illinois’ largest provider of services for the LGBT community.

Description/Treatment

HIV: Hey, It’s Viral! is an innovative video addressing HIV/AIDS, comprehensive sex education, and youth activism. The video uses a sex-positive, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) inclusive educational model, and its quirky, fun soundtrack and original animation actively engage youth in the issues. The video begins with the question: “What is passed virally?” Disease, myths about HIV, and false information are all virally spread, but it is our responsibility to spread accurate knowledge about sexual health and gather support for HIV prevention.

The need for a youth-focused, LGBT-sensitive, and culturally appropriate HIV/AIDS educational video and teaching materials is urgent. In the United States, fifty percent of new infections are among people 25 and younger. Fifty-five youth are infected with HIV daily, yet after 28 years of the AIDS epidemic, no national education platform exists to prevent HIV infection. While infection rates are growing, especially amongst youth of color, there is a serious lack of youth-centered prevention information created in an accessible, frank and affirming manner. In the face of this crisis, abstinence-only education continues to be prioritized in most middle and high schools, and a new approach to reach young audiences is desperately needed.

Chicago community leaders Howard Brown Health Center, Beyondmedia Education and About Face Theatre joined forces to produce Condom Sense: A Real Life Education, a multi-disciplinary sex education program that engages students through theatre, media and conversation. As part of Condom Sense, Beyondmedia created HIV: Hey, It’s Viral!, an educational film and accompanying teachers’ curriculum and study guide for youth. These materials fill the informational void by providing educators with appropriate teaching tools to openly discuss the issues surrounding HIV/AIDS in the context of their lives.

Hey, It’s Viral! has been approved by the Chicago Board of Education for implementation into each Chicago Public High School. Youth who watch this video will be safer as a result of our work, and will glean information that will help them help others to be safe as well. Additionally, the project will train youth to become peer educators and activists through youth-led screenings and discussions to promote dialogue and education about HIV/AIDS.

Funds are being sought for the nationwide distribution of the video and educational materials, in conjunction with a youth-led peer outreach campaign. Our goal is to impact pedagogical policy to shift away from ineffective abstinence-only initiatives and move towards a youth-focused program that provides educators with comprehensive HIV/AIDS and Sex Education teaching tools.

We see the long-term impact of HIV: Hey, It’s Viral! as changing the direction of HIV and safe sex education in public schools. The project will help shift current educational teaching pedagogy and systems of thinking from the abstinence model to a more realistic youth-focused informational model. Educators will be empowered to teach HIV/AIDS education in a frank style that realistically addresses youth concerns and provides access to accurate information. Peers within schools will build activist and leadership skills as they facilitate discussions and educational sessions with fellow students. Further collaboration will be fostered amongst organizations and leaders that fight HIV/AIDS. We firmly believe that with accurate knowledge and networks of support, we can reduce the number of new cases amongst high-school aged youth and impact policy concerning how HIV/AIDS education is taught in schools.

HIV: Hey, It’s Viral! is a Beyondmedia Education project.

Beyondmedia’s mission is to collaborate with underserved and underrepresented women, girls, LGBT youth, and communities to tell their stories and organize for social justice through the creation and distribution of media arts. We specialize in media literacy and production workshops that equip marginalized communities to use these powerful tools - often for the first time - to explore their lives, develop their voices, and advocate for their communities. Workshops are facilitated by trained media artist-activists and developed collaboratively with partnering organizations and participants. Participants develop crucial skills needed to address issues of importance to their communities, such as freedom from gender-based violence and the violences of racism and socio-economic exclusion. In 2005, Beyondmedia was honored with a Crossroad Fund’s Ron Sable Award for our “incredible work giving members of some of the most marginalized groups, including women in prison, young women, and women with disabilities, a voice.”

Beyondmedia was founded in 1996 and established as a nonprofit in 2000 in response to the lack of media access for women and girls in Chicago. Since then, we have partnered with over 100 community organizations and schools to produce videos of broadcast quality, multimedia installations, spoken word performance pieces, photography exhibitions, discussion guides, and websites. Our media has been recognized in local, national and international film festivals, screened in schools, universities and cultural centers across Chicago, the U.S., internationally, and on television.

Our media has a record of transforming not only the lives of women, youth and communities, but also of influencing media curricula nationally, impacting state legislation and winning prestigious awards. Some notable achievements include the following:
• Turning a Corner won First Place in the John A. McDermott Documentary Film Competition, the Hometown Video Awards (Public Awareness, Professional) of the Alliance for Community Media, and the Beloit International Film Festival. Chicago public television station WTTW will air the film in 2009. In addition, we have sold the film to many organizations and universities, screened it in film festivals several times around the world, on Chicago Public Access Network (CAN-TV), and cable stations across the US.
• Illinois Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky introduced Turning A Corner at the Urban Film Series: 2007 Black Docs program at the Landmark Cinema in Washington D.C., lauding Beyondmedia for tackling some of societies’ most challenging social problems through the creative process.
• Dannette Hoarde, Project Manager for our website Women and Prison: A Site for Resistance, won the Avon Hello Tomorrow Fund award for her outreach workshops with formerly incarcerated women.
• In September 2007, Beyondmedia increased our national visibility when Why They Gotta Do Me Like That: The Empowered Fe Fes Take on Bullying and Doin’ It: Sex, Disability and Videotape screened at Washington D.C.’s National Museum of Women in the Arts’ 20th Anniversary celebration. Internationally, our disability films have screened in Korea, Greece and Russia.
• Turning A Corner, made in partnership with Prostitution Alternatives Round Table of Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, was used by workshop participants to lobby for sex workers' rights in Springfield. Three bills were signed into law, and several lawmakers attributed their change of heart and vote to hearing the women's voices.