The stars of A Taste of Life on the Friendship Hospital set

Set in 'Friendship Hospital' the series follows the stories of the young doctors and nurses as they confront the health matters thrown up in their working lives.

The media campaign integrates vital HIV/AIDS information with other national health priorities, such as maternal and child health, by using the television drama, radio phone-in programmes, and radio and television advertising to convey the messages to the Cambodian audience.

Taste of Life

Production of the new television medical drama, Taste of Life, has gone into top gear over the past few months with executive producer Matthew Robinson providing constant on the job training to the entire team.

Out of the six main characters in the show, only one actor had professional experience when cast, the others were trained by BBC staff, together with the writers, production team and crew.

	The production team on location. All trained from scratch by the Trust

Filming for the series takes place on the purpose-built hospital set as well as going out on location; when on location the production attracts large crowds of fascinated spectators who always remain reverentially quiet while they absorb the unfamiliar spectacle.

Taste of Life is broadcast on Cambodia’s premier television channel, TV5 and on the government broadcaster TVK.

TV5 also carries the BBC World Service Trust Indian drama Jasoos Vijay.

Os Tos Mhong! and First Steps

Pregnancy, drug use, STI's and HIV/AIDS prevention and testing are just some of the topics that have been discussed on the youth sexual health radio phone-in Os Tos Mhong! (Cool! in English)

The radio talk show broadcast on FM102, has proved extremely popular with young callers and has even taken a call from a monk keen to encourage open discussion about HIV and AIDS amongst the young.

Calls to the programme often reach capacity; the show that addressed HIV/AIDS was particularly open and frank with young callers raising a gamut of sexual health issues.

	Sokha, one of the presenters of phone-in show 'Cool!'

The youth are not the only section of Cambodian society targeted with this style of programme; First Steps tackles social and health issues for the adult population.

Unprecedented in Cambodian phone-in programmes, there has been an excellent response from female listeners, with over 50% of calls from women whereas most shows get a majority of calls from men.

The first few programmes have held discussions around topics like children’s health, the stigma around HIV and relationships between parents and children.

Going on air early Sunday evenings, the show has received a tremendous response from listeners all over the country with calls coming in from over 15 provinces.

First Steps went on air last October and is Radio National of Kampuchea’s (RNK) first ever live programme, the co-production is broadcast from a brand new studio with a very dedicated RNK staff and management.

Jackie Chan

	Film star Jackie Chan and cartoon condom Lok Chouy fighting the stigma of HIV/AIDS

The Trust’s casting department hit the jackpot when they recruited movie star Jackie Chan to appear in a television advertisement as part of the campaign to fight HIV/AIDS!

The actor was in Cambodia as UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador when he agreed to appear in the HIV/AIDS information film alongside our animated condom character, Lok Chouy.

Lok Chouy is well known and popular in the country following numerous star appearances in television and radio advertisements to highlight the safe sex message.

Audience pre-testing has shown that the cartoon condom character is proving successful as a facilitator enabling people to talk more openly about safe sex and the use of condoms.

Radio information spots

36 different radio adverts have been produced in partnership with FM103 and FM102 and, in the space of a year they have been broadcast 20,000 times across 11 different stations.

The spots’ content covered: Talking about sex, condom use, and stigma towards people living with HIV/AIDS as well as mother and child health issues such as Acute Respiratory Infections.

TV information spots

Covering the same topics, TV spots were broadcast seven times daily during the campaign on our 2 partner stations, TV5 and TVK and UNICEF bought airtime on other stations for the ads to go out many more times.

Research

There is also an extensive research and evaluation element to the campaign, in which all programme messages are pre-tested and monitored making use of both qualitative and quantitive research.