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The
Council Makes the Sports Pages
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Council project director Vijaya Nidadavolu
watches cricket star Sachin Tendulkar autographing comics. |
When India's legendary cricket batsman Sachin Tendulkar—known
throughout India as the “Master Blaster”—lends his name and popularity
to spreading the word about HIV prevention, the message appears on
sports pages around the country and on Web sites.
Tendulkar joined Population Council project director and
communication strategist Vijaya Nidadavolu at a well-attended news
conference in February in Mumbai for the launch of a series of “street”
comic books promoting responsible sexual behavior among young Indian
men.
The comics were produced in
collaboration with several local NGOs active in Mumbai, Hyderabad,
Delhi, and Kolkata. They portray in pictures and dialogue true stories
that communicate HIV-prevention messages from young men from the slums,
streets, platforms, and tea-shops of the four cities. The set of four
comics, published in Hindi, Telugu, Bengali, and Urdu, are being
distributed widely throughout India. A limited edition in English is
also available.
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Two of the anti-AIDS comics in Bengali |
According to Nidadavolu, “The
comics have been designed to keep young men’s realities in mind, showing
the dominant norm of mardangi [machismo] and proposing an
alternative to the norm—a ‘real man’ who is caring, supportive, and
responsible. We hope that these street comics—a communication package
young men can read in private—will contribute to the construct of a new
masculinity and ultimately prevent HIV infections.”
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