2016 – my year in HIV advocacy It has been quite a year – and, as per last year, I’ve taken the opportunity to reflect. Trying to choose a sole image to represent each month has been so very difficult, yet joyful. 2016 – I’ll never forget you.
I was honoured to be Terrence Higgins Trust’s invited speaker at their Annual Parliamentary Reception in The House of Lords for World AIDS Day 2016. Sharing my personal story, and the work of Think2Speak with dignitaries, fellow advocates, politicians, medics and the media. Read more… Read More
AIDS2016 Durban South Africa – I’ve pick out a handful of my musings from a selection of the sessions I went to in both the main venue and the Global Village
Personally one of the greatest outcomes from the conference was the people that I’ve met. Many advocates and activists that I’ve followed on social media for many years became real people to embrace, and I met their friends, their colleagues, their projects and their stories.
Adriana Bertini is an artist living in Brazil who takes old or faulty condoms and uses them to create art. She goes into schools, gets the young people used to handling and talking about condoms, whilst smashing the shame around carrying them, all while together creating amazing works of art!
The Red Ribbon Awards held a ‘Special Session’ to congratulate the 2016 Red Ribbon award winners, in Durban South Africa at the AIDS2016 conference to celebrate the vital work being done by these grass level community based groups.
Lizzie Jordan was able to visit The Blue Roof Wellness Centre designed and built by Keep a Child Alive (KCA), an organization founded in 2003 by AIDS activist Leigh Blake and 15-time Grammy Award-winner Alicia Keys, as an emergency push to get life-saving HIV medication to children needlessly dying of AIDS in Africa.
Two days with 270 people from 78 countries all with one thing in common; each one of us is HIV+.
I am guilty. I am incredibly privileged.
Today I had a conversation with a member of the NHS. Part of it went like this… NHS employee: So didn’t you know your husband was gay when he died? Me: He wasn’t my husband, he was my partner and the father of my child.… Read More
Lizzie Jordan 