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1. “My name is Santan Dias. I
am a person living with HIV. I am associated with positive
people for the last 9 years. When I work here, I feel secure
and happy. Positive People include both positives and
negatives alike and we all are saying we are positive
people. I think this a wonderful and effective model to
combat stigma and discrimination to HIV/AIDS. PLHIVs
represent less than 0.5 % of Indian population. We are not
united. Many of us are scared to come out with their status.
I strongly believe that PLHVIs should declare their status
and fight for their rights. My purpose through this
publication is to motivate PLHIVs who are insecure, under
fear and discrimination to come out. Let us join our hands
and work towards freedom from fear and discrimination.”
 2 “Hi! I
am Solomon Clapson, I was a hard core injecting drug user
for 12 years. I started to use drugs from my school days. I
used to inject heroine and brown sugar. I longed to quit
this habit and I tried many options but failed. Finally last
year I enrolled with Positive People’s Opiod substitution
program. I was able to stop my drug addiction in 3 months.
I have not used any drugs for the last one year. This is my
advice to my friends who want to come out from Drug
addiction, OST in one of the best options available to come
out from drugs.”
3) A 35 year old Nigerian national
approached us in distress. He was unable to access ARV
treatment as he was a foreign national. He was feeling
overwhelmed by his situation, as his CD4 was 100 and he was
apprehensive that he would fall ill and die as he was facing
financial problems and could not afford to buy ARV
treatment. PP assured him to explore options to ensure his
access to treatment. He was given nutrition and health
advice to prevent infection, provided with TMP-SMZ by the
organization as prophylaxis and was screened by the project
we approached the ART centre to find out the protocol
required in such a situation. The doctor in charge of the
ART centre agreed after a lot of discussion and consultation
to start him on treatment provided he furnish his legal
status in the country. Our client did not have any of the
necessary documentation, then we traced the address of the
Nigerian embassy, and wrote an appeal on his behalf, he was
advised on how to proceed with obtaining his documents and
with the organizations appeal he managed to get his embassy
to request the ART centre to start treatment. During the
process of organizing for his documents, the ORW who was
handling his case assisted him in getting sputum checks to
rule out TB and pre treatment adherence counselling so that
he was eligible and ready to start treatment as soon as the
embassy replied. He was also referred to a care home for a
week to ensure that he had access to good nutrition and
care. He has started the treatment, as his embassy provided
clearances. He has gained weight and feels good; he was also
referred to the support group meeting.
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