More kid pics

2 days ago, my Exec Director came into my office and asked me to create a poster for the "25th Anniversary of the International AIDS Candlelight Memorial", which is an international memorial to people who have died of AIDS or are living with HIV. It's a programme of the US-based Global Health Council, and for the first year ever, the Global Launch is being held outside of the US...and you guessed it, it will be here in Lilongwe, and MANET+ is the local host organization. Our office has been pretty overwhelmed with preparations in anticipation of the ceremonies on Sunday May 18 (yes, this means I have to work on my birthday).

I was actually looking forward to helping out with the poster and other promo materials, because I think they looked pretty crappy last year, and this year the whole world will be watching MANET+, so we need to do a good job. So when Victor sat down in my office on Tuesday to ask me to do the poster I was happy. Then he followed it up with "So you will finish that today. Oh, and I need you to do the brochure today too."

It's frustrating to know that this task could have been given to me with far more advance notice, but I've done my best. I made my "today" deadline for the brochure, but only managed to do a mockup of the poster with a photo that I took of a little boy at my last field visit. We had to choose between getting in the car yesterday and driving 2.5 hours to the place where I took it, photo in hand to find someone who knows who the boy is and then convince his parents to give consent for us to use it in a national poster campaign, or take some new pics. So I spent yesterday afternoon taking pictures of HIV+ children from 2 of our support groups in Lilongwe (with parents who had no problem consenting). Here are some of the results (plus one of a grandma). I have made mockups with some of the ones I think are best for the poster (not necessarily the ones I have included here) and the MANET+ staff are voting on which they like best.