Fulbright Year – Heather Ann Rule

Over the last month, one project I have been working on are posters for several prevention campaigns. These posters will be distributed to companies that are members of Expoflores, the Association of the Producers and Exporters of Flowers in Ecuador.

Companies are required, by the government, to educate their employees through workshops and graphic material about various prevention campaigns. The workshops are typically provided by a variety of professionals including: government institutions that are invited to farms, the Area of Social Responsibility of Expoflores, medical and psychology professionals. In addition to these workshops, the farms must provide graphic information visibly posted around the farm. Typically they will find their graphics using a google search and make posters in word processing programs.

The Area of Social Responsibility at Expoflores, who I have been volunteering with, saw this as an opportunity to create better graphics to promote the campaigns at their member farms. Good design draws more attention and therefore is more likely to serve the purpose of posting information about the campaigns. In the case of these campaigns, we hope these graphics will catch the employee’s attention and support important discussions on topics that are incredibly relevant to workers lives.

In creating these campaign posters I have also learned a lot about the current status of these topics in Ecuador. There is a long way to go before they – and for that matter most countries – reach proper awareness and education on these subjects, but it’s hopeful to see that people are willing to talk about issues instead of ignoring them.

The topics of these prevention campaigns are: alcohol consumption, smoking, sex ed, gender & psychological violence and HIV-Aids.