Gone Rural benefits from creative condom campaign

For the first time, designers from Gone Rural joined with PSI to run an HIV prevention campaign focusing on promoting condom use.

The campaign included the sale of limited edition men’s and women’s T-shirts with novel textured designs that promote the Lovers Plus range of smooth, ribbed studded, coloured and flavoured condoms.

Phillippa Thorne, Managing Director of Gone Rural, was the designer during the campaign.

"We wanted to design something that was different and fun, to get people talking and to remove some of the stigma attached to condoms."

The campaign raised E13 000 to support Gone Rural ’s HIV Peer Educator programme, which reaches 52 rural communities across Swazi-land.

A contemporary dance was also performed as part of the Festival, with dancers wearing designer costumes made from 5 000 condoms.

Luis Martinez, from PSI said the campaign had great potential and would like to see the campaign expanded to include a wider range of merchandise at next year’s Bushfire Festival sponsored by more partners.

"This was a great example of thinking outside the box to raise awareness of HIV and condom use. I encourage more organisations to get involved, so that it’s even bigger and better next year."

If you missed out on the limited edition T-shirts, some are still available for purchase at the Gone Rural shop in Malkerns.

Gone Rural boMake is a non-profit organisation in the Kingdom of Swaziland, founded by Gone Rural (Pty) to assist 780 rural women and their 52 communities with education, health and social needs.

While Gone Rural provides a regular source of income generation to the women, Gone Rural boMake complements this work by implementing social upliftment programmes.

PSI is a global health organisation dedicated to improving the health of people in the developing world by focusing on serious challenges like lack of family planning, HIV/AIDS, barriers to maternal health, and the greatest threats to children under five years old, including malaria, diarrhea, pneumonia and malnutrition.

Post your comment

Your name:

Your e-mail address:

Add your comments:

Please enter the code you see in the image:

Image:

Code: