living in grabouw we are part of a wider community heavily affected with the HIV virus, one in three people in our town live with this disease and many more are affected by it's prevalence. that said we don't see thousands of dying people walking our streets, living with HIV isn't a death sentence and what with the work we are doing via the village of hope, thembacare and the other NGO's in town we are seeing people not only stabilised but living a 'normal' life.
yes there are the drugs which must be taken every twelve hours to keep the virus from spreading and becoming full blown AIDS, but once a person is on the ARV programme life continues, with it's daily struggles and chores.....i was reading an article on the BBC web site about ladies living with HIV in zimbabwe who play football, the perception of 'the world' is that of people lying in hospital beds or dying in their tin shacks, however as the article states these ladies want their status to be known, for their lives to be as normal as possible, playing sport, working, raising a family is all part of life, with or without being HIV+.
we know and work with so many infected people, do we treat them any different to anyone else? no and neither should the world look down on or despise such people, we need to love them, embrace them and give them a hope and a future.
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