NYSE Money Sense

A new online experience at NYSE Money Sense offers information and guidance about responsible finance. Brought to you by NYSE Euronext’s Financial Literacy Advisory Committee, NYSE Money Sense content is free for consumers, and listed companies are encouraged to distribute it to their employees.

Sony’s Humanitarian Goals

Courtesy Sony

Members of Sony, UNDP and JICA prepping for the World Cup

Print E-mail |

Sony Corp. (SNE) says it tapped into the enthusiasm surrounding the World Cup in South Africa to address the HIV/AIDS epidemic plaguing that country and its neighbors. According to the United Nations, sub-Saharan Africa accounted for 67 percent of the world population infected with HIV and 75 percent of all deaths resulting from AIDS in 2007.

Hidemi Tomita, general manager of Sony’s corporate responsibility department, says that the company partnered with the U.N. Development Programme, or UNDP, and the Japan International Cooperation Agency, or JICA, to organize “Public Viewing in Africa,” which gave thousands of people without access to a television an opportunity to watch World Cup soccer matches, as well as learn from UNDP- and JICA-developed messages about HIV/AIDS prevention and testing. To facilitate viewing, Sony set up big-screen televisions in 19 public locations in Ghana and Cameroon (both World Cup qualifiers).

This effort, Sony notes, builds on the success of a trial program it conducted last year with the JICA in Ghana, in which 1,100 of 7,200 telecast viewers got tested for HIV. “We saw this as a special opportunity to address the social needs of this region and continent, such as awareness of preventing AIDS among people in Africa,” Tomita says. “We understand that raising awareness is the first step to prevention.”