INTERVIEW - Richard Gere, AIDS Activist, Actor

"My model is related with the integration of cultural icons and the media"

The focus of your efforts regarding AIDS is mostly India at the moment. Why India?

About five years ago I asked myself, “Where would my personal capital be most effective”? And I felt India’s HIV/AIDS condition would provide me the chance to use my social capital effectively as the people there were right on the cusp and a number of years behind the U.S. I thought if I could use whatever I know about HIV/AIDS and start to create effective and workable systems and models for India then it could have a major effect.

Was the cultural affinity for India a reason to choose it because there are a number of other countries which are also on the cusp of an AIDS epidemic?

For 25 years India has been very close to my heart as I have been a frequent visitor to the Tibetan community that lives mostly in Himachal Pradesh near the Himalayas. I feel I have some deep affinity with this place that is beyond my memory.


There are obstacles in every country to battling AIDS. But are there unique obstacles in India that you haven’t seen elsewhere?

In the US, the people are homogenous. You have rich and poor but both speak only one language. In India, it’s very different. You have 400 languages and 1000 dialects. There are wide cultural variations if we move from North to South and East to West and the communication systems are not uniform nationwide. State governments are more involved with health and similar issues. So part of the work that we’ve been doing is actually trying to set up separate systems based on a model. But I think the model we have developed work. I think we’ve reached a model definition that is applicable almost everywhere we’ve worked.

Does the model work in each region despite the language and cultural differences?

The model does work. The model I’ve been working with starts from my strength, of being able to make an immediate connection with the creative community wherever I am. In the North, it is Delhi and the surrounding region, and then there is the Indian film industry in Mumbai. In the South, there is Tamil Nadu, and we are based in Chennai. That’s a whole other language. They speak Tamil and have different movie stars. The model is basically finding the cultural creative community and it includes not just actors but also musicians, poets, dancers and athletes. Talk to them, energize them and then connect them with the media.

Can you explain what your model is about?

My model is related with the integration of cultural artifacts, the icons of a culture, actors and the media. Working with industry is important as it is not only a source of money, but it’s also intimately connected with everyone’s family. Who you work for very much tells what your health plan is or how you think, the hours you work, the conditions you work under, the kind of philosophy of your work day etc. It permeates almost everything in your life. If you have industry on your side, you also have a tool to educate and take care of people and they’re a captive audience. Put together with that, the NGOs. I don’t go to the government first. I go to the NGOs. They are self-starters. The ones who are motivated from the heart to start a clinic where there isn’t one and to learn about this issue when no one else knows about it. To treat people that no one else will treat. We serve them. The last of this group that I would bring in is the government. The government, I find, usually follows along any moving train that’s successful.

You have been saying that your model is not based on typical public service announcement campaigns, but you’re going to sell a product. What’s the product?

I think we’re unsuccessful in doing most Public Service Announcements (PSA). They end up begin something that an audience can start to taste 10 minutes before it comes on and does not grab the attention of the audience. I feel PSAs have to be made as exciting as programming usually is on TV, if not more so. And I say sell a product. You put it out like a business plan. Like an ad agency goes about selling a product. We want partners to sell this product together. In this case it’s HIV/AIDS and all the issues surrounding it - How do you contract this virus? How do you prevent getting infected? How do you protect yourself and your family? To let you know that you will be feeling some discrimination and how to deal with it - A holistic approach of what are the emotional, psychological and physical realities of dealing with HIV.