PETA links up with Asean artists to fight AIDS

The richness and diversity of cultural art forms in Asia could be a potent weapon to help curb the spread of AIDS in the region.

With 37 years of people-oriented performing tradition, the Philippines Educational Theater Association (PETA) has been tapped by the Rockefeller Foundation -Southeast Asia Regional Office to mobilized the creative community in the Greater Mekong Sub-region to educate people on the dangers ahead and effective response to HIV/AIDS. The two-year project, which kicked off last September, will work towards promoting the issue through traditional and popular art forms by building a community of committed and progressive artist-advocates of AIDS and sexual health in the sub-region. Parallel activities are in the drawing board in the Philippines.

"The potentials for utilizing creative and innovative approaches to education and advocacy work that builds uplocal arts, popular culture and traditions will help facilitate better understanding of the HIV/AIDS issue in the sub-region," said Lea Espallardo, project director of the PETA Mekong Partnership Project.

Composed of Cambodia, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Myanmar, Thailand and Viet Nam, the sub-region is considered the epicenter of Asia is HIV/AIDS pandemic. Around 1.3 million people live with HIV in these Indochina countries, roughly 18% of the estimated 7.4 million cases in Asia, according to the UNAIDS in its 2004 Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic.

The PETA Mekong Partnership Project has also become a good opportunity for the theater company to renew ties and expand solidarity in Asia towards achieving a community of dedicated artists with a broad spectrum of advocacies transformed into refined and artistic performances.

The Mekong Project operates through a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation Southeast Asia Regional Office, which commissioned Espallardo, PETA senior resident arties, in 2001 to conduct research on how various art forms could be utilized for advocacy on a variety of issues including AIDS