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Campaign focuses on HIV among Latinos
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More from County NewsA campaign has begun to encourage Latino residents to talk about a sometimes taboo subject: the AIDS virus.
"There's a stigma," said Madhu Bajaj, executive director of the Ventura County AIDS Partnership. "There's a silence."
Under an initiative called Cuidate, which means "take care" in Spanish, a task force of Latino community leaders is focusing on ways to bring the subject into the open.
Bajaj said the group decided to launch the campaign after reviewing results from local surveys, focus groups and other research.
"Our campaign tag is ‘Let's start the conversation,'" Bajaj said.
The effort began this week with newspaper advertisements that will continue for three months.
Next, the task force will start training groups of people in how to talk about the issue, starting with mothers and adolescent daughters.
Jesus Torres, social marketing chairman of the group, said cultural norms, taboos and myths feed the spread of HIV in Latino communities across the nation.
"Ventura County is no different," Torres said.
"We are working with a community that is being disproportionately impacted by HIV, but one that is ill-prepared to fight it.
"With this campaign, we will give the tools, resources and know-how to our Latino community so that they may protect their health."
Latinos represented one-third of the Ventura County population in 2005, yet made up 60 percent of new AIDS cases, the partnership said.
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