Top LatAM TV Companies commit to addressing AIDS.

Senior executives of leading media companies from Latin America announced the establishment of the Iniciativa de Medios Latinoamericanos sobre el SIDA (IMLAS) — the first Latin American Media Partnership on HIV/AIDS. This announcement follows a meeting last month held in conjunction with the National Association of Television Program Executives (NATPE) Conference.

Organized in response to the Global Media AIDS Initiative (GMAI), a U.N.-supported effort launched in 2004 by the Kaiser Family Foundation together with UNAIDS to mobilize media around the world in response to the pandemic, the new Partnership promotes collaboration and leverages resources among media across the region to increase knowledge and reduce stigma.

Founding members of IMLAS include: Canal 13 (Argentina), Ecuavisa (Ecuador), TC Television (Ecuador), Telefe (Argentina), Televisa (Mexico), TV Azteca (Mexico), and TV Globo (Brazil). The Partnership will work to expand its membership across Latin America, with the goal of uniting the region’s broadcast community in response to AIDS. The GMAI has partnered with Fundacion Huesped, a non-governmental organization based in Buenos Aires, to provide day-to-day operational support for IMLAS.

“Last year, Mexico City hosted the XVII International AIDS Conference, during which UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and Mexican President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa called on global leaders to focus attention and resources on the global AIDS crisis, including the often overlooked, but growing, pandemic in Latin America,” said Tina Hoff, Vice President and Director of Media Partnerships at the Kaiser Family Foundation, which is the Secretariat for the Global Media AIDS Initiative. “This commitment by Latin American broadcasters is an important step toward motivating social change and delivering life-saving information to young people across the region.”

“Although Latin America is the third most impacted region of the world in terms of the number of people living with HIV/AIDS, after Africa and the Caribbean, the epidemic in the region is often invisible. The decision by mass media to come together in an effort to increase the amount and quality of the information they offer through different programming formats creates an unprecedented opportunity to reach our audiences with information, link them to resources, and challenge stigma,” said Leandro Cahn, Director of Communication of Fundacion Huesped.

For more information at http://www.thegmai.org>