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March 3, 2008 by Elizabeth Willoughby
The Gift is a new short film that features Gwyneth Paltrow as she narrates a poem by Simon Armitage for UNICEF. The dramatization depicts a typical, small African village, young love, a dark discovery, the social stigma of a pregnant woman with AIDS, and fear for the baby’s future.
The first message of the 4-minute short: Almost every minute, somewhere in the world, a baby is born with HIV. It costs less than $2 for treatment to prevent over 98% of mothers with HIV from passing the virus to their newborn child.
“I hope that this new short film will raise awareness and funds about this issue,” said Paltrow. “And UNICEF will be able to reach every woman with the vital care and medicines they need.”
The second message: A plea for support of UNICEF’s petition “to keep the promise made at the G8 Summit to help raise the $1.5bn needed to stop babies being born with HIV.”
“All that’s needed now is funding and political will," said Jemima Khan. "World leaders promised to help but we are yet to see any concrete action or money.”
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1 comment
Although I fully appreciate the goals of this campaign, I disagree with the spotlighting of this particular poem. In essence it lays blame on the husband as the giver of the "gift" leaving us to conclude that the root of the problem is his infidelity. This borders on being sexist and is a dangerous message to be broadcasting as it is a much more complex societal and technological problem. This same sort of oversimplification of the AIDS problem as a "Gay disease" contributed the spread of it through ignorance in the not too distant past. We CAN make headway with combating this disease, but the public "dis" service announcement is counterproductive.
4 months ago