My sinful joy

Many people know me as a person living with HIV. So when I talk about my long-term fight with diabetes, they get surprised and often ask “Oh do you have a diabetes too?” Double trouble, that’s what I call it. In my memory the symptoms of high blood sugar levels started in 1997, and I was offically diagnosed in June 1999 at age 21.

‘School dropout’

Back then I was living at a boarding school, and you cannot imagine how hard it was for me to cope with diabetes while on boarding school food. I had to stop that school year just one month before final A-level examinations. That year I did not abandon school only, I also had to give up on my favorite sugary and fizzy drinks, and many foods. Suddenly it seemed that everything delicious contained those unhealthy sugars!

There was a lot of stigma and myths around diabetes. For example that diabetes was for the elderly or super rich. I was not old or some super rich kid! And then there were the weird stories… I was using insuline which had to be kept cool, and since we did not have a fridge, I had to keep it in a fridge at a local bar as these were the only places with a fridge at the time. Every evening I would go to the bar for my insuline shot and people would always make fun of me. “How come you get a disease of rich people when you are poor?”, “Are you injecting drugs?”, “Stay and drink beer with us!” No matter how they bullied me, I did not give up.

One day, when I saw a mother feeding a 6 months old baby with diabetes, I told myself that if a young mother can manage to keep her baby healthy, I am also able enough to make decisions on how I should manage this chronic disease and grow older with it. Since that day I learned to take control of how to manage my diabetes myself and honestly, after all these years, I have to say that it is not that hard as long as you have the will and motivation.

My sin moments

Jaco

Earlier this month I was at the hospital for my diabetes check up where I ran into my peer Jaco with whom I also share the same doctor. We were chatting and he asked me how long I have been living with diabetes. For me that is almost 25 years now. So I was quite shocked to hear he was 7 years when diagnosed, and that now he is living for 45 years with diabetes. It is amazing to know a long term thriver with diabetes!

Jaco made me really glow to see how healthy and cheerful he is. He is somebody who does not give up easily. I asked him what was the hardest thing since being diagnosed at 7 years? He said “Giving up on eating biscuits”. We laughed hard about that, and I admitted that we have this in common. Then he continued and said ”When I was 11, I told doctors that I cannot continue that diet, I want to eat something sweet sometimes, food that everyone is eating. So they told me that sometimes I could eat a biscuit, but only a little bit and not everyday”.

I asked him “Now that you have been living with diabetes for 45 years, what is your sinning moment?” He said, “There are these Dutch biscuits called speculaas, sometimes I can eat the whole pack. But next day is pay back time! I must also work out by doing sport”. So Jaco cycles and walks everyday for 30 min.

Enjoying a sinful moment

Jaco asked me in return “ What is your moment of sin?” And I said “I like coconut macrons very much. That is the kind of biscuit I can eat every time”. And like Jaco, I pay back and walk my 10+ km.

This is how I can enjoy my life… Sin a bit, and balance my sins with a health lifestyle. We concluded that even when you are living with a chronic disease, you can arrange your life around it, still be cheerful and have a successful life. Jaco does not sit at home defeated by diabetes, he works for a company as an IT architect. And I feel the same about life. I run my company ‘Indonongo’, change the world as HIV Stigmafighter, while taking care of my healthy new me.

I am very thankful our paths crossed. Thank you Jaco, for being an inspiration for many. We don’t let diabetes stand in our way!

WE LIVE, WE AGE, WE THRIVE!

Peace,

Eliane

Dragtivism

Hello my lovely people.

It’s always a pleasure to share with you the stories that inspired you and the World. This time we are going to talk about Drag. While a lot of you may have heard of drag and drag queens as performance arts, many of you may not yet be familiar with drag kings.

I am proudly part of a family called the House of Løst Bois, the first house of Drag KINGS in the Netherlands based in Amsterdam. With our lovely Mother Taka Taka and Father Julius. Everybody has a reason to do drag. In fact, my passion for drag has been there the whole of my life, but I just did not give it a name. When I was little, I already liked dressing up like a boy and play ‘boys games’, fishing in the Ninga river, go birds hunting or climbing trees. I am so grateful that my parents understood me and did the best to allow me who I wanted to be.

Why am I Eric TheDragKing? When I was 5 I was crying a lot telling my mother “I don’t want to be a girl!” One day my mum was tired of my cries and she said “OK, you are now a boy and your name is Eric”. From that day on I was so happy for people to call me Eric instead Eliane, allowing me to be myself as a kid.

Then, at high school I joined a theather group of drummers and dancers which is traditionally performed by men in Burundi. I was the only girl in the group. So, one day when we were on the stage performing, the MC publicly announced that between the boys performing there was also a girl between them! And I was dressed up, had a great haircut and dancing so well that the audience was not able to spot me amongst the boys! For me what really mattered was to be myself and show that a girl is as talented as a man if they are given a chance!

So, now I am Eric TheDragKing, the king who lives with HIV. As I have experienced and seen many times what stigma does, I dance HIV and AIDS stigma away to inspire and empower whoever living with HIV and not open about it. Living healthy and embrace who we are is much stronger than the tiny virus. To perform drag is another powerful way for me to fight stigma and discrimination, and bring change to people and communities.

This month I was part of an event called Becoming: Drag, organized at Likeminds in collaboration with the House of Hopelezz and the House of Løst Bois . If you suffer from queerphobia, this was not right place to be. The queer world is where everyone feels at home. We felt a big sense of community connecting to the audience via our performances. It was a very inspiring evening where the audience was also part of the performance, dressed up in glitter, colourful hair and beautiful dresses. It was all fabulous! Please have a look at the pictures made by Kiriacademy.

I loved the talk show between our Mother Taka Taka, Father Julius and Mother Jennifer Hopelezz about drag values and how drag can be used as activism in many ways, for example as a form of protest or for prevention, for example on PrEP. Hence the word Dragtivism!

Yes, Eric TheDragKing is a Dragtivist! To dance HIV and AIDS stigma away as a drag king is another powerful way to communicate with people facing HIV stigma and discrimination. I know in many communities we have people living with HIV going through a lot and still trying to deal with this alone, so if I am able to reach an even a wider community, through my drag art, this would be a great result toward reaching a HIV stigma free world!

I am proud to be the first Dragking open about my HIV status in the Netherlands, in Burundi and the whole of Africa. I am grateful for the opportunity to be part of the drag community and that a performance such as Becoming: Drag provides me with a platfom to fight stigma and discrimination.

In the end what brings us together is connectedness through drag as art. To perform our art for you to enjoy we feel stronger together as one big family. I truly believe the beautiful art of drag is a way to express ourselves, to share our passion, and to come togeher as a community. What an incredible evening!

Peace,

Eliane

Meet the performers from the House of Hopelezz and the House of Lost Bois

Power women

Hello lovely people,

March is always exciting for us women because is the one day in a year where women are given more attention because of International Women’s Day which is always celebrated on 8 March.

This year’s focus is on achieving gender equality and empowerment of women and girls in the digital age. So, time for me to reflect how I am contributing to empowering women and girls in an ever more digitalised world!

For me, digital access is literally a life saver and favourite pastime! I use it in so many ways; As an HIV peer counselor to chat with women all over the world, to give online workshops, spread HIV awareness messages, spread talents of Heroes of hope, and so forth…

This week, I decided to use the power of whatsapp to invite women from differents nationalities to celebrate International women’s day. Many liked the idea and decided to come to my place where we shared a lot of stories, laughed and cried together. This made me realize that it does not matter where we come from, women issues in every culture are the same. Countries represented were Burundi, Tanzania, the Netherlands and Poland. My neighbour came with her grand daughter and they sang Dutch songs, and we were all touched by the message within it and became emotional. African music brought us back to the dancing energy and happiness of our togetherness.

Celebrating International Women’s Day on 8 March 2023

It is important to stay connected no matter how our busy life is, because being together sparks inspiration to share our experiences, knowledge and new ideas to improve our life cycle. That is OUR POWER to supercharge an equitable future!

But that was a small group of women and there is still so much to do! I want to reach more women and share this message with them: “Women all over the World, whether you have HIV or not, you are strong, you are good enough, and you are the boss!” I am glad the HIV Podcast shared my story as one of the Women who inspired them. The podcast that can be listened to in 167 countries, so spread the word!

Ending a week full of events around gender equity, on 11 March I joined an event organised for Burundian women living in The Netherlands to celebrate “Abakenyezi Turashoboye” (Women are able). Again, thanks to ‘digital power’ we were able to put things together very easily! We all met at the Burundian Embassy in the Hague.

Power women at the Burundian Embassy in the Hague

Our Burundian Ambassador’s, his excellence Gamariel Ndayishimiye, speech focused on encouraging women to be united and support each other in the Netherlands whilst staying connected to our motherland. In Burundi, unfortunately women still face gender and sexual violence and even whilst being far we can still support women and girls back home. He also thanked all women who are already doing great work in Burundi and proposed to do even more through a committee to organize a fund raiser to help women and girls in Burundi.

I was honored to be selected to be part of this committee, which is another opportunity for me to do more for women and girls living with HIV in Burundi. Really, we cannot make progress in our country, whether digitally or otherwise, when we leave women and girls behind. Change must begin now! Once the serious part was over, I was glad to dance among my fellow Burundian women while enjoying our home-made food and drinks. What an eventful week!

So, while here in the Netherlands obviously digital services and tech play a huge role in achieving gender equity and women and girl empowerment, please let us not forget that in many parts of the world we must continue our fight to close the huge gap in digital access and skills for women and girls, and create digital services and tech that truly meet their needs!

Peace,

Eliane

PrEP diversity

My lovely people, today I want to share my opinion on PrEP( Pre Exposure Prophylaxis). I know that PrEP is a pill that prevents a person from getting HIV infection. PrEP is scientificaly proven to be effective for women.

How are we doing in the Netherlands when it comes to PrEP? Are we being inclusive? Recently I wrote something on instagram about PrEP for women, and after that a woman with a migrant background appoached me and said ”I am not a sexworker, but I like to enjoy having sex with men but I am afraid of getting HIV because we don’t always use condoms. I was denied PrEP and the medical person told me that I don’t fit the criteria of the risk group“.

Since when the HIV virus has criteria? It seems to me that the HIV virus wins all the trophies when it comes to diversity! HIV does not care about gender, sexual orientation or ethnic background. So if PrEP is designed to prevent against HIV, then women should have equitable access to PrEP. Women have a right to protect themselves against HIV just like others that are now able to access PrEP right now!

How can we  dream of ending HIV and AIDS with proven solutions by 2030 when women, especially those with a migrant background, are still ignored in Prevention programs? Should we not focus on making good our promises to end HIV/ AIDS by 2030 and urgently include women in PrEP programmes right now?!

Migrants, thanks to Aidsmap I recently read an insightful article on why migrant women of African origin are not being targeted by health professionals in PreP programmes whilst they represent over a third of new HIV diagnoses in Belgium in 2020. Cultural differences? Lack of knowledge? Not being ready?

How can health professionals use such discriminatory language? If you generalize a problem and consider cultural diversity an obstacle instead of embracing it, then there is no way we will get rid of HIV and AIDS by 2030!

We must acknowledge that PrEP for all is a powerful pathway towards an HIV and AIDS free World. Instead of sticking our heads in the sand pretending that getting to zero new HIV infections is possible whilst still excluding people with a migrant background, let us bring proven solutions such as PreP to the people that need it most!

Celebrating diversity and ensuring access to PrEP for migrant communities belong together. In a world where our migrant community is growing, with every day new arrivals from many parts of Africa and Asia and places such as Ukraine, we must make a priority to include them in HIV prevention.

Please listen to the needs of migrant women and make sure to prioritize them, so they will be part of the winning team in our fight to end HIV and AIDS.

Change must start Now, PrEP for Women Now!

Peace ,

Eliane

Golden goal

My lovely people , January is my favourite month. Not only because it is the beginning of a New year where we can start afresh, we also still have the whole year ahead to work on whatever we set our mind to.

We definitely started afresh as on the  4th January we celebrated our 20th Anniversary in a very special way. It became a great day full of many surprises. Remember, I was back from Burundi where I had been working really hard for 3 months on various great projects. So of course, I made sure to be back on time in the Netherlands to be with my husband on our 20th anniversary.

He is such a romantic man, as he had planned some wonderful surprises for our special day. He took me to our favourite town, Rotterdam, where we stayed in an amazing hotel with a room with our own private jacuzzi and sauna! Then we went to a special place, a huge red heart along a canal in Rotterdam, where love couples lock in their commitment to each other. So on our wedding day (04/01/2023) we locked in our 20 years and committed to staying strong for another 20 years.

And some of you may remember that it is only two years ago when I started to work hard on a Healthy New Me and that my goal was to wear my wedding dress on our 20th wedding anniversary? To accomplish this I started to walk at least 10 km every day. Well, I am so proud to share with you that I reached my goal! The dress fit me perfectly. I am calling this my Golden goal!

So, what is my next big motivation? Still this month I was invited by Positive Now and HIV Ireland to the 4th National HIV Conference in Dublin, Ireland. The theme was “The Pillars of Wellbeing” and the first speaker was Prof. Paddy Mallon to update us on key topics related to HIV in 2023 and explain where we are and what we need to know. He explained about the HIV lifecycle and presented an update on injectable HIV medication. In the Netherlands we are a bit advanced on this topic as we already have people using this, so I could share some of the experiences from our community with the Irish HIV community. To the Irish participants he asked  for more people to participate in clinical trials.

The second part of conference was focused on Wellbeing. This involved topics such as how to improve our wellbeing, how do mindfulness and meditation, how to break a bad habit and apply a new habit. My favourite exercise was the ‘domino effect’ where we learned how by starting to change something small you will be able to end up reaching your bigger target. We were also asked to write down our goals for 2023.

So after a successful 2022 where more a ‘ healthy new me’ resulted in more fitness, weight control and even less medication intake (you see, A small domino can really knock over a bigger one!), what is my golden goal for 2023 and beyond? Positive Living!

I really want to keep my healthy new me lifestyle, and also to fiercely engage on HIV activism as a performer.

I would like to thank PositiveNow and HIV Ireland  and every person I managed to chat with in Ireland. Thanks to joining conferences and networks like this I am motivated to continue to be healthy and in Love for the next 20 years, and by the time I will be 66 years I want my wedding dress to fit me again! 

I am so excited! Isn’t this what I should call Positive Living?

Peace,

Eliane

Equalize!

My lovely people, a lot of good things have happened these past days in Gihanga!

To celebrate World Aids Day 2022, Inyambo Stars together with RBP+ (an association of People living with HIV) organized the “Stop HIV stigma show” in the commune of Gihanga on the 3rd of December. I was very privileged to support them to organise this show for the third time.

During the opening speech I pointed out that it is very sad to see people still dying because of AIDS in 2022. And how shocking it is to hear children are still born with HIV, or of people who stop their medication because they heard they are Undetectable. This shows the need for all these talents to keep up their support to empower communities in Gihanga, Bubanza and all of Burundi on key health messages around HIV and AIDS. 

The show was all about using our community’s talents to empower people living with or affected by HIV and AIDS to learn about and build their capacity to fight HIV & AIDS and address HIV stigma. Combining various talents and arts forms is a great way to bring HIV education, and I am glad the Inyambo Stars share this passion with me. Share our talent and break HIV stigma! 

So, we brought together different talents: The fashionistas of Inyambo stars, the Indigenous Batwa Cultural group Ubumwe from Gahwazi, musical youth of Inyambo Voices, the supertalented artist Didy Love, and many more. Together we created a fantastic day for the community of Gihanga to remember. In all the performances key messages around HIV/AIDS came back like “fight HIV and AIDS but don’t stigmatize people living with HIV”, “Do HIV testing” and “Take medication every day”. 

Here is an impression of the day:

Getting ready for the show!
Opening the “Stop HIV stigma show”
Opening the show through traditional Burundian dance by the Batwa Cultural group Ubumwe
The fashionistas from club Inyambo Stars want to contribute to empowering young people to change the narrative on HIV and AIDS by normalizing the disease. Their wish is to organise more campaigns using fashion as an arts form to bring health messages beyond Gihanga, across Burundi. 
Gihanga music artist Didy Love, proud member of Inyambo stars, did an energetic performance while also sharing key HIV messages
Inyambo voices shared their recently released song on fighting HIV stigma

Our common goal as artists was to make sure that as many as possible young people would be able to engage with us on this day. I believe that can one day they can become our hivstigmafighters, that they will be listened to by other youth and will help to build a new generation that is open minded and better informed about HIV and AIDS. This is a how we equalize the system. 

I would like to thank the Administrator of Gihanga commune who gave us the permission for this great day and sent his first adviser to join us on. It is great to see them engage in our community and see what Inyambo Stars and other talents are able to show and give back to their community. I was also pleased by the presence of RBP+ and how they appreciated the support given by the Youth in Gihanga. Finally thanks to the DJs MC Chadou and MC Jerome, and Zoe Brand designers. Together we showed that one day we will win this battle! 

Partners of the “Stop HIV stigma show”

So this was the third “Stop HIV stigma show” in Gihanga community and I hope there are more to come. I am really excited to continue my support to Inyambo Stars and others to organise their next event. If you want to support them please do, they will be very grateful to continue developing and sharing their talents to break HIV stigma! 

Together we can! 

Peace,  

Eliane. 

Children are the future

After five years absence, this year I was finally able to visit my Motherland Burundi again. My big dream was to rejoin the school children, parents and teachers in my village Murira, part of the commune of Gihanga . I really wanted to check how the primary school children are doing as during my last visit in 2017 I realized that many of them were following lessons sitting on the floor.

While back then I was able to find a temporary solution to do a quick repair of as many school benches to have less kids sitting on the floor, the work was from finished. So that visit was the start of dignity at Schools as every child has a right to quality education! Making sure school children have access to proper means such as school benches is part of that!

This year, thanks to my partners, I was able to give a huge boost to building the capacity of the Burundian team to repair even more benches, making sure they are really sturdy to last a long time. When I arrived in Burundi, I immediately teamed up with parents, teachers and local artisans to get our work going.

While the work was on-going I asked some children how they felt to sit on the floor while they are learning and they were quick to reply ”I get back aches, and after a day my knees and neck hurt very much”, “I have trouble to concentrate” and “I cannot write well because I am using my knees as a table”. I also asked about their dreams, why they are studying hard, so Kessia told me that her dream is to become a doctor, Fanny  wants to be a singer while Chris wants to become a model. But how can they make their dream come true when they are learning in such poor conditions? Every child has a right to education, they should not sit on the floor!

In Burundi they call young Children “Burundi Bw’ejo”  which means “ Burundi of tomorrow”. We all know how important good education is for children, they are our future. So we better act very fast! And that is what we did. Together with our local team we worked very hard for the children of Murira these past weeks and yesterday the moment arrived to finish our first 50 schools benches to help at least primary school children in Murira to attend their school in dignity. 

I was so proud to see the kids’ warm smiles and joy when they received the benches. So, while we are celebrating this success, there is so much more work to do since there are still more classes without chairs and my dream is that each primary school kid in the whole of Gihanga should be able to follow education in comfort.

While we are nearing the end of 2022, I am very confident that the Gihanga team will continue to work very hard for their “ Burundi of tomorrow” beyond this year as well.  They have really shown me that they are able to do so much more, so if their story inspires you to help them out, feel free to get in touch with me!

I feel so proud of the people of Gihanga to care for their children and I want to thank everyone who supported them, wherever you are in the World. Together we are bringing positive change for the Future Generation, Burundi Bw’Ejo.

Peace,

Eliane

Unity

Each year during the first weekend of September the Airborne March, commemorating the 1944 battle of Arnhem, is organised in Oosterbeek. I did this beautiful walk for the first time in 2019, just before the corona pandemic. This year, my wish to walk once again with my neighbour and friend, Wanda and Norma, was finally granted. It was a very hot day but we managed to get to the finish. 

What really inspired me was the diversity of people during this march! Young and old people, mothers with children in strollers, people with a disability… I asked a woman of respectable age with a stroller “How many kilometers are you walking?” and she replied with determination “10 kilometers!”. I was very proud of her. I also asked a young girl how many times she joined the march and she said  that it was her 6th time already. So I asked how she did this, and she said that since she was baby, her grandparents carried her with them and that this was the first time she could walk the march all by herself! 

Overall the event is real fun, even people encouraging us along the street were very engaged. Some offered us, complete strangers, to use their toilet in their home, provided water to people and pets (yes, in the Netherlands people are dog lovers), offered fruits, sweets, and biscuits. I read a lot of appreciation of what we were doing. 

I concluded that it does not matter where you come from, you can participate no matter what you look like or in which shape you are. This day is really all inclusive and helps to unite people, both participants and spectators. Together we inspire each other to both continue to remember and learn from the past, yet also shape the outlines of an inclusive future. 

That day I learned that remembering the past does not mean only focusing on the negativity, it is also an opportunity to educate the younger generation and encourage them and apply the learning to keep making a positive impact in our communities. 

So, what if we also strive for more diversity and inclusion in our HIV community, where we still face so many issues around HIV prevention and stigma and discrimination? Where we are still struggling to reach vulnerable people that are marginalised? Let us learn from events such as the Airborne March how we in the HIV community can unite people living with HIV, onlookers, and care givers to fight HIV stigma! 

For the Airborne March I can now proudly add a wing to my medal. A win-win situation since it helps me to maintain my healthy new me lifestyle and it inspires me to keep fighting together for a stigma free world. 

Peace , 

Eliane 

Share talent, break HIV stigma 

I was honoured to be selected by IAS to participate at the 24th International AIDS Conference. AIDS2022 took in place in Montreal between 27 July and 2 August.

Let me first of all state that everyone, including me, was so disappointed that so many participants where denied visa by the Canadian Government. I was looking forwards to meet Delegates from Burundi and other parts of Africa, butso many did not make it in the end. If Governments continue to exclude delegates from countries where the pandemic hits hardest, how will we end HIV in 2030?

Now on to my time at AIDS2022. I kicked off strong right away! On the 27th of July I was a speaker on the 9th International Indigenous Pre-conference on HIV and AIDS. I was humbled to share the experiences of the indigenous (Batwa) community of Burundi. To me it is clear – all over the World indigenous people are still facing inequalities, leading to relatively higher numbers of indigenous people affected by HIV and AIDS whilst also facing reduced access to HIV education and care givers. We cannot end HIV and AIDS when we leave indigenous people behind!

Panel member of the Indigenous pre-conference

There is still much so much to do around education, awareness raising, access to health campaigns for the indigenous community. This is true at least for my home country Burundi, hence also my commitment to breaking this trend. This event gave me refreshing insights into working with indigenous people to address HIV/ AIDS and other pandemics, and planted the seeds for new  partnerships in Burundi and elsewhere.

Together with Karl Schmid from +life at the U=U Summit

My second major activity was to participate in the U=U Summit on the 28th of July where I was able to meet many of my fellow activists after so many years only communicating online. Did you know that there are still a lot of countries that are not endorsing U=U? This despite knowing that U=U is an immediate and effective response to destroy HIV Stigma  which is still a public health emergency. Again we have to keep on investing in finding the right ways to break HIV stigma!

Ready for action! The Stories of Hope stand at the Global Village

Which brings me to Stories of Hope! The main reason to be on this conference was to share my project through a 3-days exhibition at the Global Village from 29 July to 2 August . As many of you already know, Stories of hope is an initiative where  people living with HIV share their talents to break HIV stigma. The launch of Stories of Hope in 2021 was supported by EATG, and the exhibition was proudly supported by HIV vereniging through sponsoring of beautiful materials and hand-outs. Organising an exhibitions at the Global village, allowing me to meet so many activists, artists and conference participants gave me a such positive energy! I am so proud that Stories of hope has reached so many global delegates and that Stories of Hope unites us in breaking HIV stigma  by sharing our talent. 

Interacting with global delegates during the 3 days exhibition

There were so many amazing side events to still do around the conference. Just to highlight a few: I participated at the famous AIDS Conference party called “No pants, no Problem” where I performed  as  Eric the Drag King and performed a dance called “Flush out HIV stigma”. We actually managed to raise 12,000 Canadian Dollars during the event in support of HIV+ women. Eric the Drag King is another me you did not know about, right? Again another great way to share my talent to break HIV stigma. 

Eric the Drag King at No pants, no problem

I am very thankful to be part of AIDS2022. I want to extend a personal thank you to the Heroes of Hope who shared their stories during the conference; Adam, Matthew, Gloria and Faustine. And I know there are still more Stories of Hope to come from other people I met at AIDS2022. Keep an eye on Stories of Hope for more interviews and portraits!

Share talent, break HIV stigma!

Peace, 

Eliane  

Ambassador of Hope

Today we are celebrating one year Stories of Hope! And we have achieved so much since our official launch on 18 July 2021, Mandela Day. Early last year, we started Stories of Hope with two Heroes, and since then our community has grown to eleven Heroes already!

You may remember that last year we highlighted the important role that Nelson Mandela fulfilled throughout his life for vulnerable people facing stigma of any kind.

Today, on Nelson’s birthday, we are proud to share a touching interview with our friend Adam Castillejo, and a true Ambassador of Hope for the global HIV community. We do hope that Adam will also be an inspiration to all of us!

Meanwhile we are very busy preparing for AIDS2022 as next week around this time we will be travelling to Montreal. We are so excited to connect to fellow activists, role models, and so many more inspiring people.

We also set ourselves a target, namely to capture and share at least one new Story of Hope on each conference day! To make this happen, we really need YOU!

So reach out to us and visit the Stories of Hope booth GVE013 at AIDS2022!