The following was written by a recent graduate of the Positive Prevention train-the-trainer program at ACG.

I recently completed the Positive Prevention Train-the-Trainer course. Taking this course has been a blessing, because I have learnt so much and I feel I have information that I didn’t know before. Confidence, high self-esteem and knowledge are what the course has given me. I feel I can inform people who stigmatize others or have a desire to learn about HIV. HIV is not a death sentence anymore; you can live, love and be free while positive.

HIV stands for Human Immunodeficiency Virus and AIDS stands for Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome. There is no cure for HIV or AIDS but there are medications to prolong one’s life, just like any other disease – for example, diabetes or high blood pressure. Treatment has come a long way from the time it started, when people were told they would have five years to live; now it’s changed and you can live a long time, have a family and see your family getting older and be happy.

Although there are medications for HIV & AIDS, there’s still a lot of stigma around the disease, in all communities and in different countries. When one doesn’t have it, they tend to think or say it’s not their problem. The truth is, it’s everyone’s problem and I’m sure if they are not infected, they must have a family member who is.

To break this stigma, we need to talk about it, be pro-active about it, and if you are living with HIV, talk about your experiences. I believe that educating people about HIV will lessen the stigma and when people know about the disease, the less scared, ashamed, and embarrassed they will be and the more willing to get tested they will be.

I recently had an experience this weekend with HIV stigma. I went to the African festival in Kitchener and there was a good diversity of different nationalities there. There was also a stand for ACCKWA, and what I noticed was that people didn’t want to go near that stand; it was as if they didn’t want to be seen standing near that booth, in case someone thought they might have HIV. So I became pro-active and took a whole bunch of condoms with information in them about HIV and started handing them out to the young men who were in the crowd. I would also tell them about being safe and reassured them that it was okay to be safe. Doing that made me feel good about the knowledge I had received from the Positive Prevention course. I believe I can use it in the near future to educate others about HIV and stigma.

The Bracelet of Hope is another way to break the stigma, because if you wear a bracelet, it shows that you have some information about HIV and you are helping those infected and affected by HIV living in Lesotho. I’m sure if more people get the bracelet, the more informed people will be.

There is help out there, and if more people talk about it, the less the stigma becomes. In closing, to prevent HIV and stigma, my mottos is, “STAY PRO-ACTIVE ABOUT HIV”.