Editorial: Lessons from condoms and cabbages

IN THE 1980s, Thai and Filipino development workers met in Cebu to exchange lessons in assisting rural communities. Before parting, the Thai visitors gave tokens to their hosts.

What stirred up the Pinoys was a small capsule encasing a brightly colored condom, with this instruction: “In case of emergency, break glass.”

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The keychain was a novelty giveaway, part of the social marketing campaign conducted by the Thai nongovernment organization (NGO), Population and Community Development Association (PDA).

According to its official website (www.pda.or.th), the NGO taps government workers and village leaders, including monks and rural teachers, to reach the most vulnerable: couples for family planning and population management, villagers trafficked, prostituted and exposed to Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (Aids).

The NGO removes the stigma of discussing contraception and practicing safe sex through an unconventional campaign. It holds “Vasectomy Carnivals” with condom-blowing contests, as well as “Condom Nights” and “Miss Anti-Aids Beauty Pageants” in Thailand’s thriving sex districts. The PDA also operates the Cabbages and Condoms (C&C) chain of restaurants, which stands out in Bangkok for its menu, as well as for its slogan, “our food is guaranteed not to cause pregnancy.”

No cheerful revolution

PDA’s combination of folk humor and common sense was christened “The Cheerful Revolution” by an award-winning documentary made by George Washington University.

The NGO’s grassroots campaign is partly credited for the decrease of Thailand’s annual population growth rate, from 3.3 percent in the 1970s to 0.6 percent in 2005. In the 1990s, Thailand witnessed a drop in HIV cases, the first country to do so.

The Philippines is a different case. Last Valentine’s Day, the Department of Health distributed free condoms at the Dangwa flower market in Manila as part of the government’s anti-HIV campaign. Two Catholic bishops called for the resignation of DOH Secretary Esperanza Cabral.

Catholic Church leaders criticize the condom distribution for promoting immorality. Cabral blames the church partly for the rising HIV cases, although she said she is open to a dialogue with its leaders.

In an impasse where two powerful institutions face off, Filipinos will hardly benefit.

Demystifying condoms

In his paper, PDA founder and chairman Mechai Viravaidya, hailed the “Condom King” by Time Magazine in its 2006 List of Asian Heroes, observed that a “social marketing program (is needed to) desensitize the population to the traditionally sensitive issue of family planning.”

A predominant obstacle in making family planning acceptable, in PDA’s social research and preparation, is the Thai people’s traditional reticence to discuss sexuality.

To counter the perception that “contraceptives are dirty,” a combination of personal, group and mass media is tapped. Local institutions and informal leaders work or volunteer as communicators and distributors, giving credibility to the family planning and anti-Aids programs.

These local leaders attract people’s attention; respond to local conditions; are more convincing than mass media; generate rapport and trust with the target group; and sustain a dialogue to make sure the messages are correctly understood.

Viravaidya cited the personal and direct approach for succeeding in showing people that “family planning was only as dirty as people’s minds made it.” By putting condoms in people’s hands, the PDA workers and volunteers enable people to see and handle a condom so that it becomes an ordinary household item.

Boosting the program’s social acceptance was the support of religious leaders. In the same paper, Viravaidya witnessed how monks blessed a new shipment of contraceptives before distribution in a village. Promotional meetings and mobile vasectomy programs are held in temples.

Contraceptives are sold for a nominal amount since PDA believes people value something more when they pay for them. Aside from community-based volunteers, PDA taps female boat vendors who sell pills and condoms with their fruits and vegetables, 24-hour vending machines dispensing condoms, taxi drivers, factory nurses, mail order for those too shy to buy over the counter, pharmacies and family-planning supermarkets installed in bus and train stations.