Young and HIV-Positive? We See You

September 05, 2018For kids who live with the virus, an empathetic health worker can be a link to a lifetime of successful treatment.“Can you see me?”We heard this question repeatedly and in different ways throughout the week-longInternational AIDS Conference in Amsterdam this summer.The question urged us to consider people who exist entirely at the margins of their societies, struggling for access to health care, for acknowledgement, for basic safety and health —people for whom this biannual gathering is possibly the only venue where they feel fully seen, safe, and prioritized.For some of us, we ’re still fighting for our basic human rights.One attendee donned a cape made from two flags: the rainbow Pride flag, and that of her own country —Russia, a nation notorious for human rights violations against the LGBTQ community. She nodded politely as I told her aboutIntraHealth International ’s work, and then she said: “For some of us, we’re still fighting for our basic human rights.”Frankly, I was embarrassed. I was only just starting to fully understand that the reality for people who live with HIV goes far beyond having a medical condition, and coming to terms with how very little I knew about the lives of marginalized HIV-positive populations in general.Nalugo Sharifah, a young Ugandan filmmaker, drove this point home in her documentary on HIV-positive youth in her home country,Crying for Third Line in Sub-Saharan Africa. It showcases interviews between young ...
Source: IntraHealth International - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Source Type: news