With Me Comes a Cure – the Humboldt Park Community HIV/AIDS Campaign

The AIDS Foundation of Chicago (AFC) has developed a campaign, With Me Comes a Cure (WMCC) which inspires community action against HIV/AIDS. WMCC is unique in that it allows targeted communities to design their own messages, and determine their mode of communication. Humboldt Park ranks 10th highest, among Chicago's 77 communities, for HIV rates among 13-24 year olds prompting local health leaders to do something. The Humboldt Park WMCC campaign is a partnership between the Greater Humboldt Park Community of Wellness, AFC, and Vida/SIDA. Through local arts-related youth programming, Los Tequis del Barrio, teen participants have essentially created the campaign. This innovative after-school program is designed to mix culture, community, and technology across a range of media to encourage participants to transform their community. Participants learn to become the creators of media, rather than passively allowing media to shape their identities. Participants have created PSAs, billboards, bus ads, posters, postcards, and a Facebook page. Participants have become peer educators to share knowledge and WMCC. Through our large network of coalition members, community events, and ties with high schools we have many effective outlets to reach our target population. WMCC is a model community mobilization project. So other communities can learn how to harness the creativity of youth in HIV/AIDS prevention, we are developing and plan to disseminate a teaching manual describing how to engage young people in creative community responses to HIV/AIDS. Therefore, our project will have long-term, far-reaching effects in other communities beyond our community of Humboldt Park.