One Wouldn't Want To Have The Same

There's So Much Stigma Around Hiv/aids. It's A Challenging Issue, And The People That Already Have Been Tested And Know Their Status Find It Very, Very Hard To Disclose Their Status, To Live With That Virus, And To Even Seek Out The Kind Of Information They Need. This Experience Of Going To South Africa A Decade Ago Really Woke Me Up To The Scale Of The Hiv/aids Pandemic In Sub-saharan Africa, How It Was Affecting Women And Their Children. I Haven't Been Able To Walk Away From It.

I Stand On The Shoulders Of Giants That Have Gone Before Me, In Terms Of Affording People Like Myself, Women, The Access To Democracy, The Vote, Medical Treatment, Education, Everything That I've Been Given. It's All Been Earned. Therefore I Feel It's Incumbent On Me Personally To Just Contribute Something, To Add To A Collective Voice That Needs To Be Here Right Now, To Build It Up To A Tipping Point, To Make The World Aware That Women's Rights Still Have To Be Addressed And That The Word 'feminism' Has Been Devalued And Needs To Be Reclaimed.

You Have A Bigger View, Of Something Bigger Than You, And You Have To View That And Take That In Mind. At Times You Feel Like Despair Rises Up Over Hope, Then Other Times You Feel Hopeful Again.

If You Do Nothing, If A Mother Doesn't Come For Care, If She Breastfeeds Her Baby, The Chances Of The Baby Getting Hiv Are About 40%. So It's About The Difference Between 40% And Zero. This Is Almost Totally Preventable. But It Requires Mothers Coming For Care And Getting The Medicines They Need, And Getting The Education And Support They Need.

It's Harder To Get Out Of Bed When You've Failed.