Far EastEnders

Can television programmes improve people’s health? Naomi Marks has been glued to a new Cambodian show, which is hoping to improve awareness and understanding of HIV/AIDS

When a student nurse is seen on television enjoying a night of drunken, condomless passion, it will, AIDS educators hope, prove compelling, edge of the seat stuff for millions of Cambodian peasants. “Will the student contract HIV?” “How will his friends and colleagues treat him if he has?” “Where willhis future then lie?”

Twenty five years after the fall of the Khmer Rouge, Cambodia’s largely rural population is being introduced to a style of television drama that is more familiar in the decadent West. Soap opera is hitting the Cambodian countryside.

But this is a soap with a difference—one that will provide as many answers as it does questions. For the hospital drama series, Rous Cheat Chivit [Taste of Life], is a new and, it is intended, entertaining way to educate the Cambodian people in the facts of HIV and AIDS.

“By the time our student nurse has his HIV test it’ll be a third of the way through the series,” said Matthew Robinson, the former EastEnders producer and head of drama for BBC Wales who heads the soap opera project for the BBC’s World Service Trust. “People will really care what happens to him.”

They will, he adds, also have absorbed covert messages about responsible drinking, transmission of HIV, HIV testing, and the social stigma associated with the virus.

On message

Cambodia has the worst HIV problem in South East Asia, with 20 000 Cambodians a year now dying of AIDS. “The most important thing is to make sure we have the right messages and that this is consistent with the messages from the government of Cambodia,” Robinson says.

“But I’m not a health expert. I’ve worked in popular TV all my life, and the last thing I want is to come to a screaming halt in my career and make a public information film. We’ve discussed very carefully how not to make this show preachy or didactic, so we’re using interesting stories and accessible, appealing characters that people can identify with. We take the stories and take the facts and turn them into powerful drama. It’s a fascinating mixture.”

Robinson has been in Cambodia for the past 15 months, working with the Cambodian government, TV5 (the country’s biggest broadcasting organisation), nongovernmental organisations, and local agencies on the development of Rous Cheat Chivit, which is one strand in a £3.3m ($5.9m; €4.9m), three year integrated media campaign to fight AIDS funded by the UK Department for International Development. He has a team of medical consultants and other health professionals helping him keep his stories realistic, factually correct, and locally relevant.

So, in a country in which 47% of all new HIV cases result from transmission from husband to wife after the man’s unprotected sex with one of the country’s numerous sex workers, the “has he, hasn’t he” storyline in which another character may have passed the virus on to his wife after a sexual transgression is also expected to keep the country in thrall—and again inform them of the dangers of casual sex without condoms.

The programme will be aired twice a week from December at peak viewing time, and the lives and loves of the characters have the potential to pull in a regular four to five million viewers, Robinson believes. “If we don’t get a big audience then we don’t get the messages over,” he said.

Social education

According to Joan Tull, communications officer with UNAIDS (the joint UN programme on HIV and AIDS), soap operas have a proven track record in health education and social education. Television dramas have helped alert people to the early signs of leprosy in India and have been pivotal in effecting legislation against domestic violence in South Africa. Although they have yet to prove their worth in the area of HIV and AIDS, Tull is optimistic.

“It doesn’t matter if people don’t take on your messages wholesale in the dramas,” she said. “A lot of what HIV and AIDS education entertainment is about is making the subject part of the ether, so that you can discuss HIV and all the other things that feed into it—like sexual relationships, the battle of the sexes, women having the right to say ‘no’… It’s important just to get people talking.”

In fact, there is a correlation between the lowering of the incidence of HIV and AIDS and how freely it is talked about. The intention is also to effect real change in Cambodians’ behaviour, however, for example in condom use. Baseline studies have already taken place in which Cambodians’ knowledge, attitudes, and practices relating to HIV and AIDS have been recorded, and there are plans for studies mid-series and at the end of the series to assess how successful the project, which is also tackling “mother and child” health issues, has been.

“There’s nothing like this on Cambodian TV at the moment,” said Robinson. In more ways than one, he added, Rous Cheat Chivit will be a revelation to the audience.

Filming on the set of Rous Cheat Chivit

       

           

Responses published this month Articles Responses LIFE Far Eastenders       Naomi Marks (October 2004) Mrs J Graham (October 31, 2004) Read this response LIFE Far Eastenders       Naomi Marks (October 2004) Niketa Kaul (November 25, 2004) Read this response LIFE Far Eastenders       Naomi Marks (October 2004) Sharan Prakash Sharma (December 16, 2004) Read this response LIFE Far Eastenders       Naomi Marks (October 2004) Mrs J Graham (October 31, 2004)       teachers assistant, north east of england school pedro080104@aol.com I think that the issues wich are being covered for the up and coming young generaton of Cambodia,about the modern sexual problems and ignorance we as humans instill upon ourselves , is a very brave and educational necessary subject to cover... I applaud you Matthew for taking the bull by the horns , and giving the beutiful people of Cambodia the Education and knowledge it so deserves....BRAVO LIFE Far Eastenders       Naomi Marks (October 2004) Niketa Kaul (November 25, 2004)       intern doctor, baroda medical college drniketa@yahoo.com A commendable effort!!!! If only it could be globalised! I, being an indian medico, have come acrosss many a people in our country too, who live in a world of oblivion... they have no idea of what the disease is; what to talk of - the transmission and spread! and if the knowledge exists, the social stigma exists too. Such ventures as mentioned above might serve to expand the knowledge of those nooks and corners which might otherwise remain inaccessible. The Indian cinema industry (Bollywood) has also tried its effort in this direction in form of "phir milenge"... something commendable on their part. However the fact exists, that the people who live in peripheral areas dont even have an access to cinema... and these are the ones who are in need of the knowledge the most!!! All in all, tv soaps are a better media and such soaps better be encouraged world over, for all to join hands in the fight against HIV. LIFE Far Eastenders       Naomi Marks (October 2004) Sharan Prakash Sharma (December 16, 2004)       Final year medical student, Institute of medicine,Nepal sharanpsharma@hotmail.com TV programmes can indeed be a very important media to increase public awareness of people about HIV/AIDS.I think TV soaps can be one of the tools to bring about change in peoples' attitude and practice. Reading the article, I felt one similarity between Combodia and Nepal.In both the countries, HIV/AIDS is lurking around as a great public health danger. So in other places like Nepal where rate of occurence of HIV/AIDS has spiralled up,it would be great, if we can follow suit as Combodia in raising public awareness about the disease.