The CDC NPIN Featured Partner resource offers HIV/AIDS, viral hepatitis, STD, and TB prevention-focused organizations a platform to showcase their services, programs, and materials. Our goal is to highlight the work of CDC's prevention partners and encourage partners to connect with each other to share information and strategies. Organizations are nominated by CDC or their peers, or are self-nominated. Those selected are featured on the NPIN Web site for the month.
The Positive Project has been working since 2000 to help the world talk about HIV/AIDS. The project links the stories of people infected and affected by HIV/AIDS with those who can benefit from hearing them—a marriage of the ageless wisdom of first-person stories with the power and reach of digital technology and the World Wide Web. The project houses the largest video collection of HIV-positive persons in the world, all available as a free public resource to initiate or enhance prevention and care efforts. The project believes that if we cannot talk about HIV, we cannot change it.
Positive Project homepage
This work grew from the conversations of two mental health professionals who were often struck by the power of the accounts and comments heard when providing HIV-related care services. It became increasingly clear that these powerful and valuable first-person accounts were an unrecognized and underused resource in the overall response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic. They agreed together to build a mechanism to acknowledge this human resource and use it effectively.
To date, The Positive Project has filmed 160 participants with an enormous range of diversity in age (9 to 70), geographic location, method of HIV transmission, sexual orientation, ethnicity, etc. All participants share thoughts about their initial diagnosis, coping, status disclosure, stigma, adherence, medical care, sex, testing, prevention, and more.
The Positive Project launched a new Web site in October 2009 to showcase the digital archive and allow full free public access for a range of applications, including online viewing, searching, sorting, saving, and downloading of video clips. The archive can be searched by demographics, topics, or both to easily tailor materials for target audiences. Video clips may be e-mailed or shared via a range of social media platforms. Most recently, topic-focused widgets have been made available to allow partners to easily post videos directly on their own Web site.
It has never been easier to help the world talk about HIV/AIDS.
The Positive Project has been used in a range of creative ways, including to:
Rosie, one of 160 people featured in The Positive Project
- Raise awareness
- Reduce stigma
- Promote prevention
- Encourage testing
- Supplement curricula (classrooms, presentations, conferences, town halls, etc.)
- Train staff
- Educate Boards of Directors/Advisory Boards/Planning Councils
- Educate patients
- Educate faith-based congregations
- Enhance Web site content (through select video clips or widgets)
- Support collaborators
The questions for all prevention and care providers may be: "Who is your audience, and what is your message?" Whatever your answers are, there are likely video materials in the archive to support your goals. Among the topics in the collection: prevention for men over 50 who have sex with men, disclosure for African American women, testing for youth, stigma for Latino/as, and safe or safer sex for those who are HIV-positive.
Prevention and care providers are encouraged to browse the collection for messages relevant to your work.
Add one of The Positive Project's widgets to your Web site. First, register as a site user. After clicking the play icon on the widget, an embed option will appear.
Contact the NPIN Outreach Team for more information on Featured Partner nominations – npinoutreach@cdcnpin.org
