Staying Positive

"Be HIV Positive! Positive about HIV Education, Awareness and Support. We must be Positive about educating ourselves on HIV/AIDS, Positive about creating awareness in our communities, and Positive about supporting all those Living With HIV (PLHIV), so they have access to all the necessary aid, medication and emotional/moral support they need to live a "normal," healthy life.

We developed this campaign which originated from Africa, by Nelson Mandela and made it relevant to Pune. We now have HIV Positive Certified companies and housewives and students boldly wearing t-shirts with HIV Positive emblazoned across their chests in support of HIV/AIDS awareness," said the fiery and passionate Lankan HIV/AIDS activist Hans Billimoria, who helps coordinate the 'Wake Up Pune' (WUP) Campaign in Pune, India.

Having been working in the field of HIV/AIDS 1999, Hans made quite an impact on young change agents from across the country, who attended R.E.A.C.H '08 (Rise for Equality, Act for Change and Hope) – the First National Youth Conference on HIV and AIDS in Sri Lanka, where he was a guest speaker, last week. Having completed his BA in Philosophy at the Madras Christian College in India, and his MPhil in Philosophy at the University of Dundee in Scotland, Hans has been working at a non-profit organisation named Deep Griha Society (DGS) in Pune, as an HIV/AIDS activist and coordinator.

WUP was started as an awareness campaign by DGS, and now runs completely as a civil society movement, essentially involving youth, with the support of NGO's, corporates, schools, colleges and universities, said Hans. Before leaving for Scotland, Hans was working for DGS in 2002 and having researched a group of 30,000 people and having identified 40 PLHIV in their midst, submitted a request for funds for a HIV/AIDS Prevention Programme from an INGO working in the field at the time. Their request was refused at the time as the INGO didn't think the problem at the time was significant enough to allocate funds for.

Thereafter, Hans left for Scotland and fundraised for the programme whilst studying for his MPhil there and eventually managed to channel the necessary funds via the Church of Scotland HIV/AIDS Project, as they strongly believed that it was time to arrest/ mitigate the problem before it became an epidemic in the community. When he returned in 2005 to start on the programme, only nine of the initially identified 40 PLHIV were still alive! If we had got the funds in 2002 and were able to carry out an awareness cum prevention programme then, it would have been a completely different story, he said adamantly.
After returning to Pune in 2005, he spearheaded the WUP campaign, essentially as most people had the notion that they couldn't be affected by HIV and that it was only the problem of targeted high risk groups such as truck drivers, drug users, sex workers etc., he said. "The middle classes can be quite complacent about their probability of contracting the disease too and what's worse, a majority of the stigma created around HIV/AIDS is also at the hands of this very group. This is why WUP is essentially about taking HIV/AIDS out of the slums and making it relevant to everyone. We have something called a Bottom Line: If you don't know how HIV's transmitted, no matter who you are, or where you come from, you are at risk," emphasised Hans.

A Wake Up Pune mall event

"In India, this problem has arisen mostly amidst young college girls, as even though most of them are sexually active, they also want to preserve their virginity till they're married, so they practice unconventional forms of intercourse, so as to keep their virginity intact and avoid pregnancy. However, the problem is as a result of them practicing unprotected sex, as they're assured of not getting pregnant, it is not the only thing they need to be protected from. This is where education and awareness are vital. The longer we as a community deny the existence of pre-marital sex, the higher the risk of Sri Lanka following in the footsteps of its neighbour," elaborated Hans.

WUP progressively expanded by involving the corporate, school and university communities etc., as there's no way a NGO can work in isolation, especially with regards to an issue such as this, he added. Even in Sri Lanka, it's imperative that everyone comes together at the grass-root, village, town and city levels. In comparison to India, it seems as though HIV/AIDS prevalence is still relatively low, but, it's difficult to make an accurate assessment as there could be numerous PLHIV who have yet to come forward, adds Hans.

"I believe strongly that "Stigma Kills." It's not the lack of access to medication, information or resources that kill most PLHIV, it's being ostracised and condemned by their families and society that does it!" Once, a mother locked her HIV Positive daughter in a back room, cut a hole in the bottom of the door and fed her through it like a dog. A bank manager dropped off his wife at our centre and never sighted the place again. Upon her death, when we called him, he claimed it was a wrong number. These are NOT supposedly "uneducated" people. This is why WUP harps so much on "normalising" HIV/AIDS orphans and all conversation surrounding it. How can PLHIV look so normal, you might ask? But, that's the reality. They are normal. The portrayal of HIV/AIDS orphans sent out to the world from Africa, to raise funds does tremendous damage to the field.

Returning to Sri Lanka next year once his contract with DGS expires, Hans hopes to share the WUP experience with Lankan youth (www.wakeuppune.org), show how to organise the business community and others to get involved, and mobilise youth to take on this project and carry it out no matter where they reside. NGO's merely getting on the band wagon of this multi- billion dollar industry is not going to solve a thing, as little or nothing goes down to the grass roots. Like at the Youth Conference last week, Hans hopes to organise Training of Trainers (TOT) programmes in the regions, where he'll share in depth with them, the basics of how HIV's transmitted and how it's not, prevention methods and symptoms etc.,
"It was evident from the feedback after the conference that HIV related knowledge was not freely available here. We need to start addressing issues such as sexual reproductive health, LGBTQ issues, drug use and the likes and start making them normal to discuss and not scary! "Unless the 'Stigma Chakra' of Silence – Ignorance – Fear – Stigma – Discrimination – Silence... is shattered, fear will continue to exist and stigma will continue to thrive, resulting in PLHIV meeting needless and untimely deaths," highlighted Hans.

Hans shares with a heavy heart, "I've lost many friends to AIDS in a time where people can easily "live" with HIV. In a time, where the World Health Organisation has reclassified HIV as a chronic condition like diabetes; not fatal! If AIDS is in fact a chronic condition like diabetes, why do people die every single day of HIV related illnesses?"

Now, is by all means the time to 'Wake Up, Lanka!'