Protect Your Love

Receiving over 13,000 hits on youtube , Protect Your Love is one of ASAAP’s most impactful campaigns. The PSA features vignettes of four South Asian male couples in situations where they protect each other – either from traffic, overflowing tea on the stove or bullying. The last scene is of a couple using a condom – another form of protecting those you love.  It’s a simple and effective message beautifully depicted with amazing actors, cinematography and voluntary efforts of many involved.

Wrap it Right

The Wrap it Right campaign is ASAAP’s most widely received campaign to date. This television commercial campaign featured eight different South Asian clips of people wrapping South Asian iconic things such as saris, rotis, flower garlands and cricket bats eluding to condom usage as on the things we should ‘wrap right’ as a play on words. The campaign stemmed from the fact that there is a lot of stigma associated with engaging in open and honest dialogue about sexuality within the South Asian community. This advertisement was run on OMNI television, ATN, the TTC and on many other public and private venues. Print advertisements featuring still shots from the commercials have been distributed widely as well. Click on the images to watch both promos:

Brown Like Me

As part of ASAAP’s Queer South Asian Youth (Q-SAY) project,  this short film captures the experiences of 6 queer-identified South Asian youth living in the Greater Toronto Area who speak candidly about identity labels, homophobia, coming out, pride, resiliency, and family.

Change Your Attitude

This campaign featured an openly gay South Asian couple on the streets of Toronto. The tagline for the campaign stated: “The only thing that needs to change here is your attitude.” This poster campaign was followed by two television commercials featuring gay South Asian men talking about coming out to their families and their safer sex practices. This was ASAAP’s television commercial debut.

I have HIV

The I Have HIV campaign depicted South Asian professionals enjoying a meal and having a discussion. The text in the posters listed popular South Asian nuances such as “eating biriyani” and “reading Rohinton Mistry” and ended with the question “Why can’t I tell you I have HIV?” This campaign was created to raise awareness about HIV stigma within the South Asian community.

Discover with a Cover

The Discover with a Cover campaign was a youth-focused poster campaigned designed to break silences and challenge myths about South Asian sexuality. These highly controversial posters featured a variety of South Asian men and women engaging in sexually provocative poses. Requests for these posters were received from India, the U.K, New Zealand and Vancouver and the campaign was presented  at the 2006 International AIDS Conference in Toronto. Many venues refused to display them due to their graphic nature but the campaign was ground breaking in its message. A week-long discussion on the South Asian youth chat forum Sepiamutiny.com revolved around the posters and youth from across the globe argued and commented on their views of the campaign.