Today is the first day of the DAA workshop. After breakfast we had our first meeting. We talked about the Pop Pp Store and how to promote DAA. Yesterday I had a short excursion in down town with Veniamin. Such a nice city!! I will enjoy my time here!! Darja Gontcharov

Today is the birthday of Pop-street art darling Keith Haring. The artist, who mastered the rare combination of super happy and super cool, would turn 54 if he were still with us today. Haring, who was born to a cartoonist father in Pennsylvania, grew up inspired by the smile-inducing imagery of Walt Disney and Dr. Seuss. At 19 years old he moved to New York, and, inspired by the graffiti scene, began decorating the city's subways and club scenes with his signature imagery. Haring's work, like a lit-up game of tribal Tetris, focuses on the power inherent in simple lines, colors and shapes. Soft stick figures of dogs, flying saucers and crawling babies have an intense energy to them, making it impossible for those who see them to keep a smile off their faces. Although he was condemned by some critics for being too accessible, Haring's generous images for everyone were both easy to see and easy to appreciate. Haring once commented: "The public needs art -- and it is the responsibility of a 'self-proclaimed artist' to realize that the public needs art, and not to make bourgeois art for a few and ignore the masses." His works were were public artworks in every sense. With connections including Andy Warhol, Grace Jones, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Madonna, Haring quickly embodied the energy of urban 1980's New York. Although he passed away at only 31 years old, his short art career was overflowing with public artworks, museum and gallery shows, music collaborations, advertisements and a social life everyone envied. And yet his devotion to public service and activism showed the complexity behind his art and life. For example, after Haring was diagnosed with AIDS, he provided funding and imagery to AIDS organizations and children’s programs. One of his emblematic images is the "radiant baby," a soft, bright crawling form from which light bursts forth in every direction. Given the joy Haring spread throughout his short life, we are starting to think this may be a self portrait. (With thanks to The Huffington Post)

Ah, the fresh start of a new festival season. I have waited all winter for this! And to start it off great, I went (like I do every year) to Groezrock last weekend! It was amazing, but be sure, dear DAA-lovers, I did not forget about you! My backpack was filled with condoms, pins and flyers when I left for the festival and I came back empty-handed.  I have to say, the condoms were most loved. I don’t know if it was the sunshine or the festival, but sex was in the air! For example, we saw a – very lucky- guy with a girl at each side, enjoying the feel of both women’s breasts at the same time. So Zoë, my partner in crime decided to put a condom in the décolleté of one of the lovely ladies.  The guy was quite pleased to see this and so were we , knowing that they kept it safe!  But what is a festival without something to remember it by? So we decided to take it a step further and to make a t-shirt and let the festival crowd decorate it with safe sex slogans for us. And even the lovely guys from the bands Zebrahead and Simple Plan decided to get in on the action and signed our shirt! We’d like to thank them for their support. Zebrahead looked like they were enjoying the festival beers and their fans, and they also complimented us on what we did, so I took my chance to slip them a condom with our website on there and we hope to hear more from them!

Hi my name is Matti. This is my first week of internship at Designers Against Aids and I'm really liking it! Before I started working here, I had heard a lot of great stuff about DAA from a former classmate but I just knew one sole initiative: 'Fashion Against Aids'. So I began to do some research: what DAA exactly is, what they stand for, what other activities they do, etc. And it just blew me away! So now I'm here for the next 8 weeks as an intern. During my first day I helped developing posters for the opening of the new pop-up shop, which is located in the City Hall at Grote Markt in Antwerp. I helped decorating the shop together with Jean-Yves, Ayke and Ven, which was a lot of fun but also a lot of hard work in order to get everything ready on time. DAA gives me the chance to implement the skills that I've learned at school a communication manager in real life. Thanks DAA for this wonderful opportunity!

Today we received a check of 75.000 euros from the MAC AIDS Fund (from sales of Viva Glam lipsticks) to be used for Designers against AIDS and our projects with our International HIV/AIDS Awareness Education Center. This donation means the world to us, as it proves the validity of our work, so we're very proud and happy with this honour. With the money we can do a lot of new and exciting projects with our Belgian and international students, starting with our second Pop Up Shop that opens on May 9th at 1 PM in Antwerp's City Hall. There's still a lot of awareness about HIV/AIDS to be raised among youth and we won't stop 'til we get enough!
On the photo you see from left to right: DAA Ambassador & international top model Hannelore Knuts, DAA founder/creative director Ninette Murk, MAC Cosmetics General Brand Manager Benelux Julie Van Ongevalle and MAC Cosmetics senior MUA Elke Willemen, all smiling from ear to ear and wearing the bright pink Viva Glam lipstick designed by Nicki Minaj with pride. Here's to a long lasting partnership!

Hi everybody! We've been working very hard on our version of the Designers Against Aids-brochure, and we thought today might well be the perfect day to give you a sneak peek of what the cover will look like. As you can see, we based our design on a condom package in the DAA-colors. We hope you like it, and we'll see you at the Pop-Up Shop! Ellen, Gildwin, Laurens and Jasmine

People who live in Grapheusstraat in Deurne did not sleep long last Saturday morning, as the front yard of IHAEC became the center of a street party on the occassion of the 'Opsinjoren- clean your own street' event that was held all over Antwerp. We received two boxes of yummy food and a tent from the City of Antwerp so all our neighbors could join in the fun. You can see in the pictures how well the tent suits our exterior! After cleaning the street, everybody went outside to chat with their neighbors, to sell some old stuff and to have a glass of Belgian beer in the fresh air in an atmosphere of a real celebration. Summer is coming, guys! Let's organize more of these parties!  

One of the designs from Keith Haring, Mat Collishaw, or Sue Webster & Tim Noble comes packaged with the upcoming issue of GARAGE Magazine. If you just can’t wait to get one, during the Fashion Weeks in New York, London, and Paris, Le Baron will have them in the bathroom. Just remember that while it is a condom, it’s art, and is not meant for use.Source

Finally the rain stopped for a few hours, we took advantage of that and decided to freshen up one of the first things you see when you come to DAA, the garden bench. We matched the colours to one of the renovated wall of the building, our own way of modernizing the bench... We had fun painting and of course silly games and pranks were aplenty in the process. Check it out for yourself...

The Fashion Against Aids campaign is not about which colour of skin you have nor about your sexual preferences, it’s about love. That’s why H&M decided to include gay couples in their campaign, as you can see on the lovely picture here. I think the taboo about homosexuality should’ve been in the garbage bin for a long time, so I’m quite happy to see H&M support that. So all you lovers out there, pick up a camera, kiss your girl/boy and upload the photo to http://campaign.hm.com/faa2012/. 1 dollar gets donated to 4 HIV/AIDS charities (including DAA) for every picture that's put online, so what's stopping you? And if you’re a bit bicurious, this is the time for an experiment. Just make sure you have that camera and a condom with you at all times and give people some proof that love really is what makes the world go round!

I just watched a movie about a girl my age who had unprotected sex once with a guy that turned out to be HIV positive. The whole movie she keeps running away from knowing if she is infected or not. At the end when she finally faces the test and it seems like a good ending is nearby, it turns out that she is indeed HIV positive. It wasn't the best acting, but it's the first time it scared me. I can understand that the words ‘HIV’ and ‘AIDS’ don’t say anything or mean practically nothing to you, but imagine that one time you go to the doctor for a simple blood test and when he comes back and sits you down, the only thing he says is ‘I’m afraid I have some bad news’. I know life is all fun and games, and let’s keep it that way. But imagine that moment, your life will stop and take a turn that you didn’t expect. It does not mean the end, but it’s a change that you cannot turn back. Don’t let it happen to you, please protect yourself.

Hi! We're Ellen, Gildwin, Laurens and Jasmine and we're students in Multilingual Professional Communication at the University of Antwerp. For a school project, we were asked to help a good cause of our choice with its external communication. Obviously, we chose DAA. We are very excited that Ninette and the IHAEC-volunteers and -students agreed to work with us. As you can see on the picture, we are already doing some interesting condom research while working on our version of the DAA-brochure. We'll keep you updated on what we're doing and we'll post other fun and interesting stuff soon, so check out the blog from time to time!