The key is to allow your OneLove project to become a community initiative

Recently, Johan Bouwer, a reader from Cape Town asked us for advice on how to get communities involved in the OneLove campaign.

He said:

“Where does one find a “place ” to promote/advertise yourself – I desperately want to start communities to be involved as well as churches.”

This post will look at how you can support the OneLove Campaign in your community. It will also provide some tips on how to promote your activities.

We hope this helps Johan and many others like him!

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.
Your blog need not be complicated: write about what you want to do and how you want to do it.

You can then update it weekly to say what activities you have done to meet your objectives, where your challenges are and what solutions are possible. For information and resources to start a blog quickly and for free, go here, here and here.

Send a link to your blog to NGOs in your area which deal with HIV and AIDS, sex, families and relationships. You can also send the link to schools, clinics and churches in your area.

Check out SANGONeT’s Prodder database to search for NGOs in your area which would be interested in a love/sex/relationships/HIV/AIDS campaign related activities.

Once again, the OneLove Web site team would be happy to link to your weekly posts and inform all our readers about your activities.

4. Publish your story on the OneLove web site

After you have published a blog post or article about the OneLove campaign, tell us in the comments section or email your story to admin@onelovesouthernafrica.org.

We will publish your story here so the whole community involved in the campaign knows about it.

You should also register your blog on Afrigator and Amatomu so that more people can find it on the Internet.

5. Send us your photos

These branded water bottles were distributed at the launch of the OneLove Campaign in Lesotho

You don’t have to write us a long article telling us about your activities.

Send us your photos, and we will post them on the OneLove web site, on OneLove’s Flickr album, on OneLove’s Facebook page and on Twitter.

6. 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.

7. Speak about OneLove to your friends and family

Chat to them about why it’s healthier for them to choose to have one love and be faithful to that person. Give those who do not agree with you the platform to disagree without feeling judged by you or those who support the OneLove Campaign.

You can also download a PDF copy of the OneLove English booklet and send it to all your friends and family members to provide them with information that will help them smarter and safer relationship choices.

8. 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 English booklet This booklet was published by Soul City in South Africa. It is available in English, Afrikaans and Zulu.

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