Bangalore TeachAIDS, a nonprofit social venture that creates breakthrough software solving numerous persistent problems in HIV and AIDS prevention around the world, recently announced the launch of the Kannada version of their HIV educational animations. Featuring the voices of actos Sudeep, Suhasini Maniratnam, Vijay Raghavendra and Anu Prabhakar, the celebrities joined hands for the first time to bring this revolutionary tool to Karnataka.
According to Dr Piya Sorcar, founder and CEO of TeachAIDS, the NGO has been humbled by the support and kindness that the celebrities or TeachAIDS Global Ambassadors have shown. "They have done everything from donating their voices, working with us to build their animated characters, spoken at event as our representatives, donated their studios and audio equipment, and worked with government officials to support in the mass distribution and dissemination efforts of these materials," she said.
The male and female versions of the 25-minute animations will be available on CDs and DVDs which will be given to the government for distribution across the state. "The government of Karnataka has already agreed to distribute these animations in all government and government-aided secondary schools," said Sorcar.
Next year, NGOs and the government will distribute free copies of the final software. Notably, the Karnataka State AIDS Prevention Society (KSAPS) has committed to distributing 30,000 copies of the animations. The Kannada animation announcement follows the overwhelmingly successful TeachAIDS launch in Andhra Pradesh of the Telugu and English TeachAIDS animations, starring Nagarjuna, Shabana Azmi, Anushka Shetty, Shruti Haasan, among others.
"This year, we are announcing media launches for Odisha, Assam, and Tamil Nadu. Next year, we will begin the development of a number of other new Indian language versions," said Sorcar.