Red ribbon goes mobile
In the lead-up to this year’s World AIDS Day, lending your support is as easy as sending a two-second text.
The AIDS Trust has teamed up with Telstra to produce an electronic red ribbon to download to your phone and send to friends far and wide.
“It’s a refresh of the concept of the ribbon,” AIDS Trust acting CEO Greg Gahl explained.
“The state and territory organisations have processes to push physical red ribbons out into their jurisdictions, but that’s limited by capacity. This pushes it into areas where people can’t get near a physical red ribbon.
“It’s a wonderful national initiative. It means if you happen to be in some mining camp in the middle of nowhere you can buy a red ribbon where you normally couldn’t.”
Attached to the specially designed image of a red ribbon is a brief description of its history and significance, providing new opportunities to raise awareness.
“You can give a ribbon to a friend, which means you can sit in your office and send a ribbon to 10 friends to make them aware of something they may have not even considered, so you get that wonderful personal network,” Gahl said.
The ribbons cost $1.95 for Telstra users and slightly more for non-Telstra users. All proceeds go to the AIDS Trust.
info: To download a red ribbon to your phone text RED to 13 76 63 and follow the instructions.
