Friend with virus 2019-2022
Friend with virus – a project about HIV from the child and the parents perspective. A collection of material for children, young people, and adults in the form of books, films, and a web app that connects conversations and facts about HIV in an everyday and imaginative way.
Books in English (4-6 and 7-9 years)
My new band-aid (4-6 years)
In the house, next door to mine lives Salem. He is my best friend. We usually swing and think about different things. Like my band-aid, Salem’s loose tooth, unicorns and HIV. Salem wonders how HIV feels like, and what it looks like. I will tell you!
This book introduces, normalizes and helps you talk about HIV in your everyday life. It is part of the project “Vän med Virus”, financed by Allmänna Arvsfonden.
Something I want to tell you (7-9 years)
Adam thinks about the fact that some things are easy and others difficult to tell. Something can feel soft and bubbly to say. Like, a whisper in someone’s ear. Other things can feel hard and a little scary to tell, like when he has done something he is not supposed to. It can feel wonderful and big too, (like) something he wants to tell the whole world.
This book introduces, normalizes and helps you talk about HIV in your everyday life. It is part of the project “Vän med Virus”, financed by Allmänna Arvsfonden.
An animated film about living with HIV (ages 10-12)
A web application that normalizes and helps you talk about HIV in everyday life (from 13 years)
About the project
Noaks Ark Stockholm, the Children’s HIV Clinic at Astrid Lindgren’s Children’s Hospital at Karolinska University Hospital Huddinge and Amphi Produktion AB collaborate in the project. The project is financed by the Heritage Fund and runs between 2019–2022.
The purpose of “Friend with Virus” is to produce materials that support children and families living with HIV in a way that conveys that conversations about HIV do not have to be difficult. The goal is to develop a series of tools for conversation for children and families, with children and families living with HIV.
We want the knowledge and support that many families seek in conversations about HIV to be available in everyday life to everyone who needs and wants to talk about HIV, such as in conversations with children, relatives, friends, and with healthcare.
The material touches on the emotional and intellectual challenges that children and parents themselves experience in conversations about HIV. At the end of the project, the material will consist of four support tools that can help in conversations about HIV: two children’s books, an animated film, and an associated web application that can promote valuable reflections and discussions for the target group.
INCLUSIVE
It is important that children and families living with HIV are made visible in a credible way that creates recognition for the young and old. This is done, for example, by adapting the material to children and families’ majority language and children’s age.
WITH ACCESSIBILITY
We will distribute the material to families living with HIV and to professionals who meet or work with the target group in everyday life, at school, and in healthcare.
FROM THE CHILDREN’S PERSPECTIVE
Children living with HIV today are the first generation to grow up with HIV as a chronic infection. We develop material that can be easily integrated into children’s everyday life in the form of children’s books, an animated film, and a web application. This aims to include children in important conversations that affect them.
COLLABORATE WITH EXPERTS
We have a long-term collaboration with the Children’s HIV Clinic, which is a national knowledge and resource clinic and part of Astrid Lindgren’s Children’s Hospital at Karolinska University Hospital Huddinge. For several years, the Children’s HIV Clinic has, among other things, run the HIV School, which is an educational activity and a meeting place in the form of a camp, for all children (10 – 12 years) and young people (10 – 18 years) who are living with HIV and who live in Sweden. Amphi Produktion AB is a production company with extensive experience in producing norm-critical and intersectional material for companies, municipalities, and organizations across the country.
