HIV Ireland – hivstigmafighter

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 4^th January we celebrated our 20^th 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 20^th 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 20years 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 4^th 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 20years, 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

My lovely people, have I already told you how glad I am to be open about my status? I get to know more and more fabulous people in our HIV community wherever I go. And I love the way my HIV community keeps on growing. When we fight HIV stigma we need as many allies as possible.

In January this year I got in touch with a photographer from Dublin, Steven Doyle. He is not HIV positive, but he was a nurse in Romania during the height of AIDS epidemic in the 90’s where he worked with many children living with HIV and AIDS abandoned by their parents. Steven was taking care of them in hospitals and even adopted one of them, Nicu.

Eventually Nicu died at the age of 27. Ever since Steven’s work in Romania, he is vigorously fighting HIV stigma and discrimination through his activism and photography. His story moved me and we have so many things in common, see for example my story on HIV medication exchange for people living with HIV in Romania.

Inspired by Steven’s story I decided to join his project where he is collecting stories and portraits of people living with HIV all over the World. I consider Steven my newest HIV STIGMA family member.

So, in May Steven invited me and my husband for the photo exhibition in Dublin, Ireland. I was very excited and also curious to get to know the other HIV models. And I found that at least 3 of them are my EATG colleagues, what a small World!

In Ireland I was able to connect with new people like wonderful Gerald, who introduced me to the big HIV network in Ireland, for example HIV Ireland. One day he also showed us around in his family’s magical garden where he told us so many stories about edible and medicinal plants, what an experience! He showed us the beautiful Kildare Cathedral where I learned much about Saint Brigid of Kildare, a very important Irish Female Saint. Gerald is truly doing a lot for the HIV community in Ireland.

Enjoying the photo exhibition with Gerry

And then came the surprise invitation of Robbie and the Fabulous Drag Queen Veda Lady who are the hosts of the Poz vibe Podcast for people living with HIV, their friends, family and allies. There I also met Jordie, and my ally Steven was also part of the podcast. While all our stories are unique and inspiring, we are all connected by beating our common enemy “HIV STIGMA”. We shared many tears and laughter that afternoon. Overall, through our common experiences we realised that we are heading into the right direction and that our efforts are not in vain. Talking about HIV openly is definitely the right way to normalise HIV.

Yet, I would like to say one word of caution as, to me, the migrant HIV community is still not vocal enough, whether in Ireland or my own country the Netherlands. So I do hope my and other stories will keep on inspiring them to join us.

I would like to thank Steven for introducing me to my allies in Ireland and helping the HIV community to share our stories through our beautiful faces. Also hugs and kisses to Veda Lady and Robbie Lawlor for working so hard to make sure the positive voices of people living with HIV are being heard by the World. And Jordi, thank you so much for inspiring the young and queer world to living a fabulous positive life. Last but not least, I am thanking generous Gerald for his contribution to HIV Stigmafighter’s work in Burundi!

Let us keep up the good work, the world needs more people like us. Feel welcome to join our battle because HIV STIGMA MUST FALL!

Peace,

Eliane

Tag: HIV Ireland

Golden goal

One big HIV family