ED2011 News

Waverley Care want jokes to #laffoffstigma

By | Published on Thursday 11 August 2011

Laff Off Stigma

Waverley Care, Scotland’s leading HIV charity, are encouraging Fringe-goers to share a joke via Twitter this Festival, with the chance to win £100 of Amazon vouchers if theirs is the best, in the eyes of judge Ryan Taylor, comedy programmer at The Pleasance.

Waverley Care have a long history of teaming up with the comedy community at the Fringe to both raise funds for and awareness of their work. In this latest awareness raising campaign, comedy fans are encouraged to show their solidarity for those who suffer from HIV or AIDS by tweeting a short (140 characters remember) joke with the hash-tag #laff11, or to do the same via Facebook or the #laffoffstigma website. All submitted jokes will then appear on said website, before Ryan picks the overall winner.

Taylor told ThreeWeeks: “We’re delighted to support Waverley Care with #laffoffstigma. It’s an unusual and exciting way to encourage people to stand up against HIV stigma. Using humour to tackle a serious subject is a great way of raising awareness and I’m hoping that Fringe-goers will be creative, imaginative and prolific in sending in their gags”.

Waverley Care’s David Johnson added: “HIV stigma is the single biggest issue that impacts on the mental health of our service users.  The need to keep their condition a secret has a devastating effect on self-esteem and many of our service users feel very isolated.   During August, we hope people will get tweeting to give a big ‘thumbs down’ to HIV stigma and a big ‘thumbs up’ to Waverley Care”.



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