WYG International led this project in partnership with the Federal AIDS Centre (FAC), which was developing a major public awareness campaign to combat HIV/AIDS in Russia.

To begin with existence of HIV/AIDS was denied, but then the surge in new cases raised the HIV/AIDS epidemic to the status of high national priority. Whilst most donor projects had originally focussed on high risk groups such as drug users and on “harm reduction”, the FAC recognised that one of the most dangerous threats was the transmission of infection from the high risk group to the much wider spectrum within the community, known as the bridge population. The project’s aim was therefore to raise public awareness of the risks of contracting HIV/AIDS and to discourage people from joining the high risk groups. This involved a far-reaching public awareness programme focussing on different target groups such as politicians, legislators, high profile public figures at the Federal level. The project was also active at Oblast level, working with the Regional AIDS Centres to focus on young people, including pupils in schools and students in higher education.

As it had been recognised there had been little coherence amongst  many earlier projects to raise awareness of this issue, one key objective of the project was to develop a “message” that could be used to harmonise the activities of different groups interested in HIV/AIDS issues and to do this a wide range of media was used, including television, radio and newspaper.

Much of the work took place in Moscow, in particular in respect of Federal issues, whilst two pilot Oblasts in different parts of the Federation were identified to undertake pilot initiatives that could later be widely disseminated to other regions.