One thing we're noticing so far in the conference is the number of people who come to the booth just to tell us they have heard of, and love, Catholics for Choice and Condoms4Life. They've seen our posters on their walls, our postcards on their parents' dining room tables and our pamphlets in their offices.
A lab technician from Italy told Meghan that he likes to keep our "Abstinence has a high failure rate" poster in the area where he works on microbicide research. A professor from the University of Washington in Seattle hangs the "People of Faith Use Condoms" posters in his office "to rattle (his) colleagues who are not such progressive Catholics." One woman from the UK said that, when she told her 85-year-old mother about the pope's unequivocal ban on condoms and the work Condoms4Life does to combat it, she received strict marching orders to bring back a postcard for her mother's parish priest.
People who hadn't heard about us before also are utilizing our materials in new ways - taking our literature and stickers for training sessions with youth in Africa, panel discussions on faith in Europe and meetings with patients in Asia and Latin America. The French materials, especially, have made a huge impact among French-speaking African attendees from Senegal, the DRC and beyond. Our Spanish materials are reaching Latinos and Latinas from the US as well as people from throughout Central and South America.
We plan to march with the rest of the conference attendees tonight! See you there.
Meghan (right) and the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence mingle at the 2010 International AIDS Conference. Our much-loved posters frame them!
So glad you are in Vienna!! Keep up the great work!
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