UN soap opera fights HIV/Aids

The grave of Noah Meli, whose death starts the soap

By Alex Kirby BBC News Online environment correspondent

The United Nations has turned to showbiz to spread warnings about HIV/Aids in Africa.

It has commissioned a soap opera, Heart and Soul, aimed at an audience of hundreds of millions of people.

The weekly drama will be broadcast on both television and radio.

It will also carry other UN messages, though its producers insist it is first and foremost entertainment.

Twenty-four UN agencies are supporting the soap, intended to address "the key development aspects of five broad themes".

 Click here to watch an introduction to Heart and Soul.

As well as HIV/Aids, they are poverty reduction, environmental protection, governance and human rights, and gender.

High praise

Other supporters include the World Bank, the British Council, and the BBC.

The model for Heart and Soul is a South African soap, Soul City, on air since 1992. Research found that 95% of people exposed to it said they had learnt something, and knowledge about HIV transmission increased significantly among young people.

Waiting for the shot

The UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, has called Heart and Soul "an excellent venture".

It starts with a run of three-minute pre-series "teasers" about Noah Meli, patriarch of one of the soap's families. He is dying of Aids, but will not admit it.

The teasers go out daily during the World Cup, shot on the day of broadcast to make them as topical as possible.

The series itself starts in July with Noah's funeral, and to heighten interest the producers will place "obituaries" in mass-circulation newspapers.

The six programmes will be broadcast on radio in English and Kiswahili in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. The TV programmes, broadcast simultaneously, will be transmitted in 22 countries by TV Africa, a private South African station.

Different messengers

They will be in English, though there are plans for French and possibly Portuguese versions when Heart and Soul returns in December for another 12 weeks.

The project will cost more than $1m - enough to pay for a week's production of the BBC soap EastEnders. About a third has been raised, including $100,000 from the UK's Department for International Development.

The crew's marching orders

Although the soap is set in no specific country, all the actors and scriptwriters are Kenyan.

Heart and Soul is the brainchild of Tore Brevik, former head of communications at the UN Environment Programme (Unep).

He told BBC News Online: "I thought we should use the many very good African actors and musicians to give people messages to improve their lives, not bureaucrats in suits.

No preaching

"Getting all the UN agencies involved was like pulling teeth. I hope the programmes will be eye-openers, a spark to get people saying 'I never knew that'."

Matthew Robinson of the BBC, a seasoned drama director once called "the pope of soap", leads the international consultants' team.

He told BBC News Online: "This is meant to engage people. If the UN had wanted something totally message-based, I wouldn't have been interested.

"Sam Goldwyn once said: 'Films are for entertainment. Let Western Union deliver messages', and I agree.

"That said, my own awareness of HIV/Aids has been sharpened and my conscience pricked."

Images courtesy of Matthew Robinson