Using technology to talk to Ethiopian university students about HIV

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This article originally appeared on The ONE Blog on Oct. 26, 2012.

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — The most dramatic demographic divergence in Ethiopia in recent years has been an explosion in the number of young adults enrolled in post-secondary education. Ten years ago, there were 15,000. In 2012, that has risen to 380,000 students attending state universities — a 25-fold increase. Most of them moved out of their family homes and also from the protective shields of their parents, with all the implications that has for their sexual and reproductive health.

To reach them in the most effective way with information about protecting themselves from HIV and other sexually-transmitted infections, health programs in Africa are increasingly turning to technology — digital, mobile and social. In Ethiopia, for example, DKT Ethiopia, an affiliate of the non-profit organization DKT International, launched the Higher Education Initiative in 2009 in an effort to get on top of this demographic trend and the potential negative health consequences it portends.

Using sexiness to stop unsafe sex

Sexy condom ads like this helped DKT increase condom sales in Brazil.

This article was published originally by Fast Company's Co.EXIST blog on October 5, 2012.

Sex and sexuality have long been used to market a variety of consumer products in wealthy countries. But when it comes to HIV prevention and family planning in developing countries, global health practitioners have mostly shied away from using the titillating strategies so effective in the commercial world.

The Pleasure Project and a small group of like-minded nonprofit partners are trying to change that, by shaking up an international reproductive health community that tries to promote safer sexual behavior by influencing the most intimate aspects of the lives of people in developing countries. With their motto, “Putting the sexy back into safer sex,” the Pleasure Project is spreading that message far and wide. At the XIX International AIDS Conference in Washington, D.C., this summer, they held a session entitled “Pleasure at AIDS 2012: Everything You Wanted to Know About Pleasurable Safer Sex but Were Afraid to Ask” that explored whether pleasure and eroticism can be harnessed to enhance HIV prevention. The conclusion was that they can indeed, even though most campaigns don’t even try.