StarTimes, the leading digital television operator in Africa has signed an agreement with UNAIDS to raise awareness about HIV and fight the AIDS epidemic.
The pact, which was sealed on Wednesday, November 29, 2017, in Accra, will enable the TV operators to use their platform to promote the activities of UNAIDS and assist the agency in its quest to eradicate the virus by 2030.
Speaking at the ceremony, the Country Director of StarTimes Ghana, Leo Hao said his outfit was happy with the union and will use their reach of more than 10 million households in Africa to create awareness about HIV.
He added that his outfit will help tackle the virus which, according to the 2016 report by the Ghana AIDS Commission, has infected more than 290,000 Ghanaians.
“We have registered companies in 30 African countries, so we are serving more than ten million homes, so we have the capacity to deliver the information and educational messages through our network to all our subscribers. We believe that creating a good awareness is key to fighting AIDS so it’s a great honour for StarTimes to join forces with UNAIDS and the Ghana AIDS Commission to fight against AIDS.”
In Ghana, we have the extra resources to fight this course; we also have the Ghana Premier League which gives us a great opportunity to promote the information UNAIDS would want to deliver to the masses,” he said.
The UNAIDS Country Director, Angela Trenton-Mbonde intimated her excitement at the MoU which she believes will help the organization in disseminating information to Ghanaians, specifically the youth.
She implored the youth to erase the misconception that HIV exists no more and protect themselves to prevent the spread of the virus.
“It’s a delightful occasion to be here to sign this agreement Memorandum of Understanding between UNAIDS and StarTimes. StarTimes has a large media network that we can use to disseminate life-saving messages to the young people because young people are the future of Ghana.
We all know that HIV is not over but there are many people who think that it’s over so we have to get correct messages to the youth.
Young people use social media a lot and StarTimes uses social media so this is a powerful way of reaching young people and having them support each other and discuss among themselves”.
Source: GhanaWeb
