HIV positive? Courage routs discrimination

From mere looks, Eliza Kazonga is just like any other woman. Unless you start getting her story through your ears, thought that this Mangochi lady is HIV-positive should only get you while in dreamland. She is healthy and strong.

The 33-year-old Kazonga will tell you that it was in 2000 when her husband’s serious sickness prompted both of them to go for HIV Counselling and Testing (HCT), otherwise known as Voluntary Counselling and Testing (VCT).

“We both tested positive to the virus, and I have lived with the virus since then,” she says. “I was recommended for anti-retroviral (ARV) therapy in 2004.”

While one would expect Kazonga to conceal such a status, she went public after testing positive and spread the news. But the development attracted what she did not expect. Her husband’s relatives came out guns blazing, labeling her names.

For a while, Kazonga was overwhelmed by fear, fear to repeat her story. She thought the more she openly talked about her status, the more she would attract the interjections. But how far would she have gone? She was HIV-positive first and last, and hiding this status would never have reversed the situation. So she started fighting the fear.

As Kazonga raced from testing positive, to getting the interjections and landing at the decision to fight fear, more and more people tested positive to the virus which causes the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes (Aids). One of them is Isaac Stephano.

“I went for a test and tested positive in 2003,” says Stephano. “I had been feeling very weak, steadily losing weight and suffering from rashes before deciding to go for testing.”

“Breaking the news to my community attracted me misery. They said a lot of bad things about me, labeling me the most evil person in that community. But I was not afraid of repeating what I had said.”

Unlike them, Stephano – who started taking ARVs in 2005 – was steadfast in his mission because he pooled courage from the fact that the likes of Kazonga were already known to be HIV-positive. If they are ridiculed but keep going, who am I not to, Stephano asked himself.

As more people who tested positive but initially concealed their statuses came out to join the likes of Kazonga and Stephano, a block started forming. The more they bonded, the more the philosophy of fear escaped them. Now it was time to confront discrimination.

“We were 13 when we started moving together as a group,” says Kazonga. “We used to go around with volunteers who used us as examples of people who lived positively with the virus.

“But we went our ways because we discovered that the same volunteers who appeared to be using us to encourage people to come out and declare their status went behind our backs and used us as bad examples to their children. We felt that was discrimination.”

That was in 2006. The group named itself Lonjezo People Living With HIV and Aids (PLWHA) Association. And, presumably drawing inspiration from its name, the organisation promised to accomplish one thing: fight fear.

With the philosophy of fear fully concurred, the group believed, those that tested positive but did not openly declare their status would come out. As people see what these people are like, in spite of their status, they would gradually start accepting them as they are. Hence, discrimination would be conquered.

The trick is working. From 13, membership of the group increased to 36 and now there are 73 of them. And the group has moved from one that was discriminated against to one that is the most sought after.

“All those people who do not feel well are advised to come to us. We advise them to go for testing, and when they test positive they become part of our group,” says 45-year-old Anne Chikhadzula, the group’s Treasurer. She tested positive in 2007 and enlisted for ART the same year.

“Because people see how we look, they think we are lying when we say we are HIV-positive. They say HIV-positive people would not look like us.”

Chikhadzula says that the group is today a guiding light. Everyone wants to meet and see them. There is no doubt about this.

At a World Aids Day commemoration ceremony at Palm Beach in T/A Mponda’s area in the district in December last year, people who braved the heat of a clear sunny day and attended the occasion wobbled around looking for even the smallest of shelters from the sun.

But when the Master of Ceremonies announced that it was time for members of the group to manifest their positive living, everybody came out of the shelters, crammed the space around a small circle in which, one by one, the group members stood and narrated their situation.

But in a society where many who declare their status have cried under the force of discrimination, what has openly declaring their being HIV-positive benefited the members of Lonjezo PLWHA Association?

“We have changed the way people here perceive those living with HIV and Aids,” says Kazonga. “We have shown the communities that one who is HIV-positive is just like any other individual as such they should not be discriminated against. We are getting accepted into the community rather than being shunned.”

“Even the church is using us as a good example and is taking part in spreading the HIV/Aids messages.”

Chipped in Chikhadzula: “Communities call us to help them establish Aids-related organisations in their areas. We go to Mangochi Prison to deliver messages about HIV and Aids and the Officer-In-Charge (OC) wants us to be going there regularly.”

She adds that the group has instilled in most people in the area a mentality of doubting those that they see and feel like falling for.

“When they look at us, they don’t see any difference with those that have not come out openly to declare their sero-status or those that do not have the virus.

“So when they hear that we are HIV-positive but look like anybody else, they itch to go for testing with those that they fall for lest they fall for one who is positive. In which process, they know not only their status but also those of the ones they love,” she says.

“Besides, our messages have created knowledge so that in case one wishes to start a relationship with one who tested positive, they should know what they are getting into and how to handle themselves. If I kept quiet, who would know I am HIV-positive?”

The organisation spreads messages about HIV and the benefits of openly disclosing one’s status by playing football and netball games. It also has a counselling committee and has a home-based care programme to assist the chronically ill in different localities.

Apart from spreading the messages that would help those that tested positive but are currently concealing their status to come out, members of the group are also spreading the benefits of enlisting for the anti-retroviral therapy.