Entertainment Education Programs

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Wake Up Africa! Leve-toi, Afrique!

The call for each and every African to ‘Wake-up!' and take responsibility to protect themselves against HIV/AIDS is sung with passion and urgency by nearly two dozen artists who participated in the Wake-Up! Africa campaign. Inspired by 'We Are the World', SFPS (Santé Familiale et Prévention du SIDA) worked with ACS (Artistes Contre Le Sida) to produce a song combining the talents of West and Central Africa’s best known and most popular musicians. Participants included Papa Wemba, Koffi Olimide, Tshala Muana, Meiway, Aisha Kone and Nayanka Bell, all of whom dedicated their time and contributed their unique talents to the project. While acknowledging the devastation caused by AIDS, the song’s tone is one of hope and resilience. The beats behind the words are eminently danceable, but the urgency of the messages cannot be ignored.

The Materials
The Wake-Up! song is the centerpiece of the campaign. Recorded in French and local African languages, the lyrics call on listeners to become aware of the risks of AIDS, to minimize those risks by taking specific actions (practicing fidelity, using condoms, knowing their HIV status) and to increase the acceptance of and compassion for People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLWA). The music draws on West and Central Africa’s rich cultural heritage. The infectious beats of the Congo provide the underlying rhythm. In addition to the song, the campaign included a music video, seven TV and radio spots and a “behind the scenes” magazine/documentary.

The music video shows scenes of the artists in the recording studio, demonstrators demanding better care for PLWA, street scenes of Abidjan and highlights of the 10th International Conference on STD/AIDS in Africa (ICASA), where the song had its debut. The TV and radio spots contain a key section of the song and testimonials edited from lengthier interviews with the artists. Since the spots were not scripted, the musicians can be heard speaking from their hearts about an issue that is near to many of them. Each spot addresses one of the Wake-Up! messages: promotion of condom use (three spots); mutual fidelity (one spot), importance of the well being of PLWA (one spot), importance of HIV testing/knowing one’s status (two spots). Additional portions of the interviews with the musicians can be heard during the magazine program, which gives viewers insight into the process of making the song as well as why the musicians chose to participate.

Audience
The goal of the Wake-Up! campaign was to motivate listeners to take personal responsibility to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS by protecting themselves. Given the popularity of music among young people, the primary target audience for the campaign was urban youth in the four SFPS target countries: Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire and Togo. However, given the extent of the campaign’s reach, it is clear that many “older” youth were also reached by the song’s important messages.

The Campaign
Wake-Up! Africa was first heard on opening night of ICASA in Cote d’Ivoire, December 1997. Many of the participating artists traveled to Abidjan to perform in front of conference participants, including several African Heads of State and French President Jacques Chirac. Later that night, conference attendees and Abidjan residents were treated to a concert that included local talent, the Wake-Up! song and the sounds of Papa Wemba, the internationally acclaimed musician from the Congo. An intensive mass media campaign then followed ICASA, kicked off by local launches in each of the project countries. Launches were attended by local NGOs, Ministers of Health and Communication, AIDS organziations, donors and SFPS partners. Wake-Up! was heard on national, commercial and local radio stations in Cameroon, Togo, Cote d’Ivoire and Burkina Faso, and reached countless numbers of listeners through the broadcast on the regional radio, Africa No. 1. In total, 20 radio stations throughout the region broadcast the song and spots.

Copies of the music video, TV spots and magazine program were distributed to national television stations. While most stations chose to broadcast the video during music related programming, some used it for transitions between programs and before special programming events. The spots were often aired before the evening news or other prime time programming. During the broadcast of the All Africa Soccer Cup matches, which captures the attention of hundreds of thousands of viewers each year, sports fans were exposed to the Wake-Up! spots. In addition to these traditional forms of mass media, viewers in several of the SFPS countries saw the video at their local video clubs and cinema halls before the main feature was shown.

Another key element to the campaign was the involvement of local NGOs in disseminating the song’s messages at the community level. In conjunction with World AIDS Day, December 1, 1999, SFPS supplied NGOs in the four project countries with copies of the Wake-Up! CD and cassettes, the music video and discussion guides to help groups conduct educational sessions around the song’s key themes. The management of the local campaigns by NGOs allowed for a breadth of creativity in reaching out to their target audiences. For example, in Togo, a local NGO organized hair and fashion shows for seamstresses and hair dressers. Showcasing the talents of the target audience, Wake-Up! was used as the music for the show, and many of the hairstyles and clothes incorporated AIDS prevention themes. In Burkina Faso, Wake-Up! was distributed to peer educators working with truckers and commercial sex workers and the song was played in the most popular bars dotting the main highways. In Cameroon, the song was played during intermission at soccer games and handball tournaments, and used in educational sessions at local church groups and colleges. In Cote d’Ivoire, the song and the spots could be heard at local gas stations and at outreach events in prisons. In addition, PSI incorporated Wake-Up! into its regular condom promotion activities, and popular musicians Meiway and Gadji Celi promoted the material during their tours.

Impact
While there has been no formal evaluation of the Wake-Up! campaign, reports from NGOs, radio and TV station logs and unsolicited comments heard during community events indicate the campaign’s messages were widely disseminated and appreciated. SFPS estimates that the campaign reached at least 110,000 people through interpersonal channels alone. The song peaked at the number eleven spot on Africa No 1, which has a potential listenership of 450,000 to one million people! Combining the broadcast range of all the participating television and radio stations, with the variety of materials, the frequency of play and the length of the campaign, an estimated can be given that an audience no smaller than fifty million people may have been exposed to the Wake-Up! messages. As copies of the song and video continue to circulate among music fans, that number may still be increasing.

The Partners
SFPS is a USAID-funded regional initiative based in Cote d’Ivoire. The project seeks to increase the use of modern family planning methods, condoms and ORS primarily among urban and peri-urban populations in the focus countries. Johns Hopkins University/Center for Communication Programs directs the Behavior Change Communication (BCC) component of SFPS, in partnership with AED (Academy for Educational Development). Wake-Up Africa! was produced by SFPS/BCC in collaboration with Artistes Contre Le Sida, an NGO dedicated to using music and the arts to reach people with urgent messages to protect themselves against HIV/AIDS.

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