Intent on harnessing the power of celebrity figures and captivating media to bring home the HIV and AIDS message, Nollywood star actors Fred Amata, Bimbo Akintola, Iyen Agbonifo, Keppy Ekpeyong-Bassey and Bond Emeruwa were part of the team that came together to explore means to connect popular media with HIV and AIDS. French Director Bernard Seytre who has produced over 40 movies as well as Mr. Ibrahim Bako, a radio programme producer also made presentations at the forum which targets Behaviour Change Communications.

In his opening remarks, NACA Director General Prof. John Idoko stated that NACA is laying much emphasis on prevention following the observation that for every new HIV client placed on drug, five more new infection is recorded which is not good enough if the fight against HIV and AIDS is to be won. The NACA DG said that there are more new infections in rural areas where 65 percent of Nigerian population resides and it is time we look beyond TV, radio and the newspaper as means of HIV&AIDS awareness and education and find an alternative medium of getting the message to rural dwellers.

The invited film and radio producers later went on to present briefs on their organizations’ profiles and clips of previous works. The presented films generated comments from the participants and the issues raised during the discussion session are the need for the film producers to be more developmental in their approach, create processes that give room for impact evaluation of movies, engage in more research work before producing developmental movies and, more importantly, inclusion of resource mobilization and sustainability in planning media projects.

NACA Programmes Director Dr. Akudo Ikpeazu opined that the movies presented demonstrated that movies can act as a good medium to catalyze behavior change and assured that further interactions will be arranged to finalize on the materials and resources to kick start proposed concepts. NACA’s Behavior Change consultant, Mr. Omini said movies by themselves do not change behavior but complement other activities geared towards behavior change and that the concept of using movies to complement behavior change communication  is a welcome idea.