One of our readers emailed us to ask how she can get involved with the OneLove campaign. This is a question that many people who visit this Web site may have. So we decided to answer the question as a blog post online.

You can support OneLove campaign in many ways:

1. Hold OneLove dialogues and debates

You can hold a community event to discuss love in the time of HIV and AIDS at your community centre, church, school, women’s group, stokvel or anywhere where you feel the message is needed.

To arrange the dialogue:

• Decide on the topic that is most relevant for your community. For example, you can choose a topic that relates to polygamy if the practice is common in your community. You can also choose a more universal topic, such as “Men can’t control their sexuality so we should not blame them for having many sexual partners at the same time.”
• Find a venue where the dialogue will take place.
• Ask community leaders and /activists to speak at the event. For some ideas on possible speakers, consider religious leaders, cultural leaders and political leaders. You can also invite people who are already involved in community-building activities and people who are already involved in the fight against HIV and AIDS to speak at the event.
• Advertise the dialogue in the community media. Put up posters at community centres, libraries, schools, local shops and anywhere else where you are allowed. You can also tell your local radio station about the event and ask them to announce it to the community.
• Choose a chairperson for the event. Make sure that you choose a person who can make sure that the debate is constructive and does not blame people who have more than one sexual partner. You need someone who will make sure that men and women are given the same consideration and all the points of view are heard, even if he/she does not agree with them. The chairperson must also make sure the speakers do not speak too long.

You can also attend OneLove dialogues that the regional partners in your country are organising. To find out more about in-country programmes and partners, click the country name in the menu on the right.

2. Phone in to your community radio station

Start a discussion on the radio about your reasons for supporting the OneLove campaign. You can also discuss how the community can support the campaign.

3. Blog about OneLove

If you are a blogger, write a post telling your readers why we should have only one love. Where possible, make the post controversial to encourage your readers to hold rigorous debates.

Your post can also touch on issues of gender, religion, culture, peer pressure and how they affect our decisions to have one or more sexual partners.

4. Spread the word

Take part in a meme: write a post titled “5 Things I Can Do To Encourage People In My Community
to Have OneLove.”

Choose five bloggers you know and ask them to also write on the topic. Suggest that they also ask five bloggers they know to play write five posts on the topic. This will allow the message to spread long after you have blogged about the topic, and encourage many more people to talk about OneLove.

5. Start an online discussion

Many of us belong to online groups. If the type of group you belong to allows discussions on love and relationships, post your thoughts about OneLove on the forum and encourage other members to love and sex in this time of HIV and AIDS.

6. Speak about OneLove to your friends and family

Email a PDF copy of the OneLove booklet to your friends and family and encourage them to have only one sexual partner at a time.

7. You can organise a OneLove march

You can organise a match in order to encourage people in your community to have one love at a time.
You will need to:

• Invite everyone you can think of to a meeting to suggest a march to your community.
  Everyone your community has something to gain if you work together to stop HIV.
• Explain to them what the OneLove campaign is about. Hand out copies of this OneLove booklet published by Soul City. You can download a PDF copy of the booklet from this web site. Hard copies of the booklet are also available for free from Soul City.
• Once everyone agrees that a OneLove march is a good idea, set a date and time for the march.
• Make a list of jobs that need to be done to make the event a success. Give the people who have agreed to help you to organise a march a task.

For more information on the tasks you need to do to organise a march, read page 19 of the OneLove
booklet. This booklet was published by Soul City in South Africa. It is available in English, Afrikaans
and Zulu.

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