burundi – HIV stigmafighter

United through art: Celebrating Gihanga’s 6th talent show

30 November 2025hivstigmafighter

My lovely people, how are you? It has been a while, but I have not forgotten any of you. Many of you remember where I spent World AIDS Day last year and the excitement I felt watching the young talents of Gihanga during the 5th edition of the Gihanga Talent Show. This year, for the 6th edition, I rejoiced in being back in Burundi and joining Inyambo Stars to organise this event. It took place on Saturday, 29 November, during the same week as my 49th birthday.

In celebration of World AIDS Day 2025 in the Gihanga community, we continue our mission of reducing stigma. We organised the 6th edition of the Gihanga Talent Show under the theme “Let’s stand together against HIV stigma.” This event remains one of the best opportunities to educate young people and raise awareness about HIV and AIDS.

As always, at Inyambo Stars and HIV Stigmafighter, we give space to any young talent who wants to share their arts to help break stigma. We have such a diversity of young people from all communities in Gihanga, including youth from the Batwa (pygmee) community and people with albinism. It is a positive step that encourages the community to recognise their talents and embrace them fully. We stand together against stigma.

Mr. Shaddy, also known as Shadrack Nahumuremyi, opened the competition with a beautiful reggae‑style song. The local authorities were represented by the Communal Counseller of Gihanga Zone. They delivered a powerful speech encouraging the young talents of Gihanga to continue their amazing work by raising HIV awareness and educating both youth and adults through their artistic expressions.

This year’s show included singing, traditional and modern dance, comedy/sketches, and catwalk. I am proud to see so many young talents in Gihanga. The winners made me proud. As a member of the jury, it was difficult to choose the first place in each category because so many participants delivered beautiful and powerful messages.

I hope that in the next edition we will receive more support so we can offer prizes for second and third place instead of first prize only. I had dreamed of including an HIV testing team at the event, but I learned that in Burundi testing is no longer done at events as people must go to designated testing locations.

Still, I am very proud of the progress in our community. Every year, I see a change in attitudes toward people living with HIV in Gihanga. Since the beginning of this event in 2020, the goal has been to normalise HIV. Seeing a young person confidently wearing a T‑shirt that says “People living with HIV are like us, don’t stigmatize them” or watching a sketch explaining that “Women who take HIV medication during pregnancy are protecting their unborn babies” shows how impactful the Gihanga Talent Show has become.

I had the opportunity to share my story and remind people living with HIV that taking medication and staying healthy is essential. Looking after ourselves, accepting our diagnosis, and living beyond it is what matters. I reminded everyone why we must end HIV stigma, because stigma is now the biggest killer. It is the reason people fear testing, the reason some believe HIV is gone. Silence keeps stigma alive. If we do not speak out, fight back, and educate others, we will spend another 40 years facing the same challenges we faced 40 years ago. We have the tools, and the Gihanga Talent Show is one of them. Let us continue, we are moving in the right direction!

We would like to thank our local authorities for supporting us and allowing this event to continue for the past six years. We thank all jury members – Enos Pro, Pisco, Landy, and Eliane – for your hard work.

Congratulations to the winners:

Singing: Stide
Modern Dance: Gwezo – Team A
Modern Dance: Inyambo Stars Abasangwabutaka
Sketch: Cabiza TV
Catwalk: Kenthia

Here you can enjoy a few more pictures of the talent show:

We thank all participants who shared their talent. Your contribution to combating HIV stigma is valuable to the Gihanga community, to Burundi, and to the world. As the Burundian proverb says, “Haburana babiri hagatsinda umwe”- in a competition, only one can win. Keep sharing your talents to fight HIV stigma, maybe next time you will be the one.

Thank you to our amazing MC Machad de la Capital, to Irene Kundubumwe from Inyambo Stars, to Remegie and Yves Don Darcy for coordinating logistics, and to BAWA for providing a person living with HIV to share their testimony.

To all the amazing young artists of Gihanga: you are an inspiration. Let us continue this great work with positive energy and hope to end HIV. This is how we transform the HIV response.

Peace,

Eliane

Young talents breaking HIV stigma

6 December 202410 February 2025hivstigmafighter

My lovely people, you may wonder how I spend my World AIDS Day. Although on the first of December I was in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, with the PrEpNu outreach team to share information about PrEP at an LGBTQIA+ refugee event organised by COC the Netherlands, my heart was full of excitement of what was happening in Gihanga in Burundi.

In my home country Burundi there are 13.24 million people of which 2.9% are living with HIV. This means 383.000 people! Many of them still do not have reliable access to HIV treatment and HIV stigma and prejuduces are still widespread throughout Burundi. That’s not cool!!!

When my cousin Sifa and her husband died of AIDS in 2015, I was already living more than 10 years with HIV. Sifa was not ready to accept her diagnosis, she and her husband did not dare to go for treatment as they were afraid that people would judge them. In the end they were killed by HIV stigma. Later on, I learned about another aunty who died in silence, they found out too late. This did drive me mad! I started asking myself how can we normalize HIV in my community?

I know what works as I am already using arts as a powerful tool to engage people in HIV awereness, education and stigma reduction. Even when I was young we used music and dance to promote peace during the war. We can use art to kill stigma too!

That is how I started working with local artists from my hometown Gihanga and founded the youth association Inyambo STARS. On World AIDS Day 2020 we hosted the first “Gihanga Talent show”. When we saw the success of this show, we decided to continue to support and encourage young talents in Gihanga to help spread the message on HIV awareness and stigma reduction.

This fifth edition of the Gihanga Talent Show was about solidarity with people living with HIV. It was the most diverse ever as we opened the event for many differents categories; We saw young talents singing, performing modern and traditional dance, performing theater, and doing catwalks.

When I received the images of the event it made me emotional and I could not help myself to shed a tear of joy. Look at these images, there is so much young talent and there are so many young people enjoying the show in this tiny village in the heart of Africa!

One of the most memorable moments of the event was when Lyse Bella, a young woman from the Burundian Association for Women in Action (BAWA), shared her story about living with HIV for the first time. She was very proud to answer so many questions from the audience and she got many compliments from young girls and boys. She stressed that it is very important to keep on education the young generation if we want to eradicate HIV and the stigma surrounding it.

Also during the event, Irene Kundubumwe from Inyambo STARS gave a talk about PrEP. The next day I heard a funny story about a few young boys that went to a Gihanga health official to ask for PrEP. He told them to first get tested so they can get a prescription from a doctor and then get PrEP for free. This shows how easy HIV awareness messages can be spread through these kind of events and that we should invest more in public events and HIV prevention services.

We are targeting a young generation. Combining arts, bringing joy to young people and fighting HIV stigma is a powerful combination. I am so proud of all 2024 Gihanga Talent Show winners and all the other young talents who joined the event, your artistic contributions and messages on HIV stigma reduction are truly appreciated. Your presence and dedication shows that we, people living with HIV, are supported by our community.

My wish for the 6th edition of the Gihanga Talent Show is to include an HIV testing facility during the event, so that many people who want to do an HIV test can do it right way. Do you know that you can also help us out? A tiny contribution to the event can make a huge difference. This is really important locally-led HIV action which must be funded more!

Finally, I would like to thank the Inyambo STARS team, jury members MC Machad Enos PRO Akim Landry and MC Jerome Umutarambigwa, BAWA and PrEP educator Irene Kundubumwe for making the Gihanga Talent Show a memorable event on World AIDS Day 2024.

Peace,

Eliane

Invest in women

1 March 202410 February 2025hivstigmafighter

My lovely people how have you been? I was visiting my beloved country in January and part of February this year. While visiting many places and interacting with many people, I realized the incredibly important place that women have in Burundian society.

We contribute so much to society; Early morning, even before breakfast time, women can already be found on the lands as farmers and when they are finished they will be making breakfast for their family. Just imagine, while for many of us the day hasn’t even started, many women in Burundi have already worked for three hours or more!

Walking the streets and markets of Burundi you will notice that most street sellers or market stall owners are women. They work hard to sell fruits, vegetables, fish, clothes, etc. They sell hair extensions on the streets and apply them to customers. While working, they will often take care of their kids, holding them on their backs or allowing them to play on the street.

Meet Jeanine, a cheerful woman of Gihanga, selling porridge on the street. While enjoying her porridge I had an opportunity to chat with her, so I asked why she sells porridge at the end of the day instead of the morning when most of us eat our porridge. She replied that during daytime she is working on the fields as a farmer. Then, at the end of the day she makes time to sell her porridge to people who cannot afford to eat in a restaurant.

Renata is another great example of how a women contribute to a healthy society. In my hometown Gihanga access to clean water has been a problem for ages, even when I was young! Many women and girls walk or cycle for over 8 kilometres to fetch clean water for their family to drink. So, Renata was just starting her cycling journey, taking 6 containers of 20 litres each with her, while also taking her baby on her back. It does not matter how far or whether it is a hot or rainy day, this is what she must do to keep her family healthy.

And if you think that Jeanine and Renata can wind down after a hard day of work, do not forget they will also be cooking meals for their family or selling a few small things in front of their doorsteps in the evening. They are real centipedes (maboko igihumbi in my language). Women like Jeanine and Renata understand the important role of women in Burundian society. They know their contribution to maintain a healthy and resilient family is essential.

With International women’s Day around the corner, another shining star woman that I want to praise for her courage and dedication to fight for the rights of vulnerable women in Burundi is Evangeline Ngendakumana, the Executive Director of BAWA (Burundian Association for Women in Action). You can read more about the great work of BAWA, including on health & HIV prevention, in my previous blog. Always working hard to support so many vulnerable women and forge their equality in Burundi, she and her team are a truly great example of why we should accelerate investing in women like Evangeline and grassroots organisations working on women’s health & HIV prevention like BAWA.

Lastly, as a Burundian woman myself, I hope I am also proudly contributing to empowering Burundian women and forging equality through my drag art as Eric the Dragking. Burundian women have many talents and we don’t need to stick to those men determine us to do. 23 years ago when I played the indonongo, a traditional instrument, as the first woman ever, I was told that it was only meant to be played by men. Today it has become normal for women to play the indonongo. We can do many things, the world is out there, let us discover it.

To those Burundians women who try to make a difference in our country and work hard for their families and contribute to Burundi’s economy, I salute you!

If you want to see some more women of Burundi contributing to a healthy society scroll down below for a slideshow…

Peace,

The proud Burundian,

Eliane

Put women first!

26 January 202410 February 2025hivstigmafighter

My lovely people,

The talk of ending HIV and AIDS has been going for ages, are we really going to end HIV and AIDS by 2030? To answer this question, we must ask ourselves what actions do we take in our HIV community to put people first? And more importantly, are we making sure to put women in charge?

There is always this inequality. We point it out, we are all aware of it, but concrete actions are hardly noticed. It seems that women are always the last to be thought about while their vulnerability around HIV is so visible. Yet, often we remain silent, indifferent. When will women be saved from this suffering of inequality? When will they not only be spoken about but also put in charge of addressing their challenges related to HIV and AIDS?

This January I am in my home country, Burundi, and my heart is broken when I talk to women in the communities. For example when I talk to a mother with child abandoned by the father, homeless women with children, or young girls begging on the street. Many of these women have no means or support network to take care of themselves and their children.

Some women resort to becoming a sex worker. This is not without danger, many of them are still sleeping on the streets and through their profession or whilst living on the streets there is a high chance of them being raped. Some told me that happens at least 3 times per week!

The rights of these women are being violated and need to be supported. No wonder it makes me angry when we shamelessly announce we want to end HIV and AIDS in 2030 while basic rights and needs of these women are not even met yet, or when there is no plan of making PrEP available as a preventive strategy to help these women to protect themselves from HIV. Where are our HIV allies when we need them most?

This month my focus is to initiate the strengthening of community-based groups working with vulnerable women to increase their awareness about health & HIV services and PrEP as a life-saving measure for HIV prevention and stigma reduction.

To make a lasting impact we must work directly with local actors, so I have teamed up with a local organisation called BAWA (Burundian Association for Women in Action). The first thing we did was to make sure we listen. We must understand the societal challenges the women face on a daily basis. And my goodness, they are many!

Many women reported they face domestic violence, some sex workers end up with pregnancy during their work and experience problems to register their children as sometimes they are arrested and have their IDs taken, women sleep on the streets without mosquito nets and suffer from malaria and since they are not registered they cannot get mosquito nets, some are being detained by police and taken to the countryside where they live in places without services, etc. It is very shocking. All of them came to the same conclusion, we need safety and protection!

Having talked about these challenges and how they affect their lives, we moved to listening to their ideas about how to improve their situation. And it became so apparent to me that they have really great ideas about how they can create a better future for themselves. For example, many women would wish to have access to PrEP or be able to protect themselves for example through condoms.

As BAWA works together with others to address the needs of these vulnerable women, we also organised a session together with them to interact with the women of BAWA. We discussed their strategies on how women can stay healthy & safe, and how to seek help when needed. This was also a great opportunity for me to share the latest on HIV prevention and treatment. So, I shared with them a whole range of preventive measures such as the dapivirine vaginal ring , PrEP pill or injectable PrEP. This is a part of the world where I clearly see the need for injectable PrEP as this will positively impact upon the health of vulnerable women. We were also able to make female and male condoms available, and most strongly preferred female condoms because they are a better means for them to protect themselves.

As is customary in our society, to end these fruitful sessions and collaborations in the Burundian grassroots (HIV) community we shared a great lunch together!

If we do not work with organisations such as BAWA and the vulnerable women they represent directly, ending HIV and AIDS by 2030 is an illusion! So, HIV allies pay attention, let’s make 2024 the year to get the balance right and make sure we address the challenges of women in the global South in our fight against HIV and AIDS.

Peace, Eliane

My sinful joy

26 May 20238 March 2025hivstigmafighter

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.

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

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.

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

Power women

24 March 20238 March 2025hivstigmafighter

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

Equalize!

6 December 20228 March 2025hivstigmafighter

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 3^rd 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:

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!

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

4 November 20228 March 2025hivstigmafighter

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

Inyambo STARS on WAD2021

8 December 20218 March 2025hivstigmafighter

On Saturday 4 December 2021, I helped Inyambo STARS to organise a local event to celebrate World AIDS Day. This was a day to show their community why they are true talents, showing their fashion skills AND committed to helping their community, especially supporting vulnerable people living with HIV in Gihanga, Burundi.

Inyambo STARS, RBP+ ( Reseau Burundais des Personnes vivant avec le VIH) with indonongo.org support, organised a total of three activities. And as large gatherings were not allowed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, they really had to show their improvisation skills this time around!

The day started with a great Burundian tradition called Ibikorwa Rusangi, community work. All over the country, every Saturday morning from 8h00 the people of Burundi contribute collectively to keeping our community healthy and promoting good cross-cultural relations. They were joined by their parents, local representatives, shopkeepers and other community members.

Really, there is no way Inyambo STARS can perform their arts without maintaining good relations and giving back to their community. I know this gave them a lot of inspiration to stay connected and work together as one. What a great opportunity to connect the community of Gihanga to fighting HIV stigma in our country.

After Ibikorwa Rusangi, Inyambo STARS, a selection of people living with HIV and partners, marched together through Gihanga in solidarity with people living with HIV and to raise awareness on this year’s World AIDS Day theme: “End AIDS, end inequalities , end pandemics”. Did you know that in Gihanga there are 246 people living with HIV, 84 men and 162 women? Of them 29 are younger than 29 years, of which 8 boys and 21 girls.

Yes, normally Inyambo STARS would now have done a fashion show or catwalk, but I do believe this March together with people living with HIV did really help them to unify with the HIV community.

They closed the day by expressing solidarity and support to vulnerable people living with HIV. The cordinator of RBP+ reinforced the message to the community of the importance of staying on medication and going to the health centre for regular check-ups. She also called upon pregnant women to do a HIV test so they can detect any new HIV cases to prevent neonatal HIV.

Helping Inyanmbo STARS and their partners to support people living with HIV in Gihanga during World AIDS Day, inspires me a lot and gives me so much positive energy to continue making impact in my community of Gihanga and possibly in the whole of Burundi.

Peace, Eliane

A big applause to the real STARS of the day!

Memorable summer of 2021

20 August 20218 March 2025hivstigmafighter

Whilst we are nearing the end of a rainy summer, I would like to reflect on my summer time. It was actually very enjoyable no matter how I look at it! It started excellent by hearing news from my diabetes doctor that I was allowed to stop 3 more pills of my medication.

Then there was Mandela Day on the 18th of July where we shared our Stories of Hope through a photo exposition, and I had a great celebratory closing party with my heroes!

A few days later I celebrated my kids’ birthdays which all of you know happen for all three of them within 4 days! My oldest daughter turned 20, one of my sons 15 and the other 13. What a blessed week for all of us.

Then we took off for a few days in the South of the Netherlands, Maastricht. What a beautiful place and surroundings. It was a short stay but full of sportive activities as I like to keep my Healthy New Me in shape! We walked hills, went into caves which still made me accomplish my sports targets every single day during my holiday! And on top of that we went one day on an (e-)bike and mounted some impressive hills with equally impressive names like the Dead man’s alley (Dodemansweg in Dutch). I was so proud to be able to get to the top of these hills and admire the incredible view. Who says Holland is flat?

Despite the many showers it was real fun to cycle together and sometimes get surprised by a shower and hide under a tree, still ending up wet because of the drops getting through the leafs. We never gave up, no matter how the weather wanted to stand in our way. It was a truly memorable time in Limburg.

Back in my hometown, I was just on time to join Amsterdam Pride. It was my lucky day because on many years whilst in the Netherlands, Pride week would always happen when I am on holidays abroad, so this time I could attend for the first time! Joining the Pride as part of the BI plus walk and wearing my HIV stigmafighter t-shirt and U=U bandana also allowed me to spread the message of UequalsU and to fight HIV stigma.

Being part of the Pride helped me to convey these two messages to a few more people. It felt great joining so many activists and LGBTQ+ communities in march. I keep on dreaming to one day see people in my country Burundi wave the Rainbow flag like here!

Beautiful people, Do not let the fear of corona conquer your life! As long as you try to stick to the rules, it’s ok to have a little fun. We really should accept for us to live with corona for many years to come and start adapting to the situation, dealing with it just like we have dealt with many other pandemics.

Nelson Mandela once said that “A WINNER IS A DREAMER WHO NEVER GIVES UP”. Who know one day we will win this battle? keep on fighting for change!

I had a great, fruitful and memorable summer of 2021.

PEACE,

Eliane