Vince Golangco for Project Headshot Clinic by Niccolo Cosme for World Aids Day

It’s a brilliant concept that is quickly taking the Facebook profile pictures by storm!

Billboards can help spread the word and in today’s new digital age, your profile pictures can be seen just as many times as the top billboards out there along EDSA or New York Times Square. So why not use this knowledge and the internet to help put up an online billboard to help.

I want to thank master photographer Niccolo Cosme for spreading awareness through his lens.

Project Headshot Clinic: Saving humanity through profile pictures.

Radio DJ / Blogger – Vince Golangco for Project Headshot Clinic

Project Headshot Clinic – ACT

The Project Headshot Clinic for 3 years has given a different look at to profile pictures online, it became serving as online billboards on online social networking sites and everyone in it, who participated in Project Headshot Clinic became an instant endorser of the product being advertised, or the cause that was being advocated for whatever that is being advertised, commercial or a particular advocacy.

For over the past three years, the Headshot Clinc team has partnered with the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) in fighting and responding to the challenge of HIV/AIDS.

The first awareness campaign of headshot clinic and UNAIDS in 2008 was called “AWARE”, followed by in 2008, and then “MOVE” in 2009 a follow up of the first one which aimed to move people from awareness to readiness to respond and act on this specific issue. This year’s, “ACT”, a clear call to action, where voluntary HIV screening and counseling was provided on given shooting dates by Take The Test and ASP (AIDS Society Philippines).

All headshots will be released online and should be used as primary profile pic on all the participant’s social network sites on December 1, 2010 which happens to be is the global celebration of WORLD AIDS DAY.

To do my part in helping spread AWARENESS, here’s a little more info about HIV / AIDS.

WHAT DOES “AIDS” MEAN?

AIDS stands for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome:

• Acquired means you can get infected with it;
• Immune Deficiency means a weakness in the body’s system that fights diseases.
• Syndrome means a group of health problems that make up a disease.

AIDS is caused by a virus called HIV, the Human Immunodeficiency Virus. If you get infected with HIV, your body will try to fight the infection. It will make “antibodies,” special molecules to fight HIV.

A blood test for HIV looks for these antibodies. If you have them in your blood, it means that you have HIV infection. People who have the HIV antibodies are called “HIV-Positive.”

Being HIV-positive, or having HIV disease, is not the same as having AIDS. Many people are HIV-positive but don’t get sick for many years. As HIV disease continues, it slowly wears down the immune system. Viruses, parasites, fungi and bacteria that usually don’t cause any problems can make you very sick if your immune system is damaged. These are called “opportunistic infections.”

HOW DO YOU GET AIDS?

You don’t actually “get” AIDS. You might get infected with HIV, and later you might develop AIDS. You can get infected with HIV from anyone who’s infected, even if they don’t look sick and even if they haven’t tested HIV-positive yet. The blood, vaginal fluid, semen, and breast milk of people infected with HIV has enough of the virus in it to infect other people. Most people get the HIV virus by:

• having sex with an infected person
• sharing a needle (shooting drugs) with someone who’s infected
• being born when their mother is infected, or drinking the breast milk of an infected woman

Getting a transfusion of infected blood used to be a way people got AIDS, but now the blood supply is screened very carefully and the risk is extremely low.

There are no documented cases of HIV being transmitted by tears or saliva, but it is possible to be infected with HIV through oral sex or in rare cases through deep kissing, especially if you have open sores in your mouth or bleeding gums.

For more information, check out http://www.aids.org or http://www.unaids.org

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Also, in the Philippines, you can check out the site http://SexAndSensibilities.com for more information on sexual health, reproductive health and much more.

For more information about the Project Headshot, Check out Niccolo Cosme’s site here – http://headshotclinic.wordpress.com