Love as a Test

Videos related to the publication: TV soap operas in HIV education: Reaching out with popular entertainment

‘Love as a Test’ is a four-part TV soap that presents the realities of living with HIV in Kyrgyzstan. It was created to appeal to youth and adults all across Kyrgyzstan, mirror their lives, provide them with basic information about HIV and the country’s particular epidemic, help them understand that HIV can infect and affect anyone including themselves and those close to them, reduce their tendencies to be afraid and to stigmatize and discriminate against people living with HIV, and change their behaviour so they take steps to protect themselves from infection and to provide compassionate care for people living with HIV.

The storyline was developed by the winners of a local writers’ competition organized by development partners. The series was first broadcast on four consecutive nights in February 2006 and reached approx. 200,000 people in three Kyrgyz provinces. In the meantime, it has been broadcast in several other Central Asian countries and it has been shown again in Kyrgyzstan, too.

The total cost of producing and promoting the original series of four episodes came to an estimated US$ 100,000. Considering that 300 people were involved in various stages of the process and that the result was a popular series of very high quality, the cost was remarkably low.

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Music Video Clip (05:14 Min.)
Episode 1 (51:52 Min.)

Episode 1
Adyl lives with his parents, older sister and two younger brothers. A student in information technology (IT) at the National University in Bishkek, he is well-liked by the department’s dean and his classmates and expects to begin his career soon. He is already engaged to marry Altynai, with the blessings of his parents and hers.
One day, he and his classmates attend a seminar on HIV at the end of which the university’s rector orders them to go for “voluntary” counselling and testing. When Adyl returns for the result, the nurse guides him to the counsellor’s office. While giving him information about HIV and asking him about his past, she tells him he is HIV-positive. He confesses that he went through a phase when he injected drugs and recalls that, the very first time, he was injected by a friend who had been injecting himself with the same needle and syringe.
Devastated, Adyl tells no one but loses all interest in life.

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Episode 2 (52:03 Min.)

Episode 2
The news soon spreads to everyone who is important in Adyl’s life. As they learn to absorb and adjust to the news, the love each of them feels for Adyl is put to a severe test and his love for them is put to a severe test, too.

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Episode 3 (52:01 Min.)

Episode 3
One by one, most of them come around to passing the test, in part by examining their own lives and recognizing that they too have made mistakes. Classmates who had rejected or stood aloof from Adyl after learning he was HIV-positive now rally around him.
Altynai fails the test, walking away from Adyl in stunned disbelief when he tells her he is HIV positive and tries to explain why.

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Episode 4 (51:23 Min.)

Episode 4
All along, Adyl has been having daydreams about Kamilla, the girl he has long loved more than any other. They separated over a misunderstanding back in the days when Adyl was injecting drugs. Now he worries he may have infected her with HIV, so he seeks her out to tell her she should get tested. At first she is angry but, eventually, after she has had time to reflect on all that has happened she decides that she still loves Adyl.

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