HIV Stigma – Naming and Owning the Problem - ICRW

A4. How It Feels to be Stigmatized
(Testimonials)
Facilitator’s Note: We consider this exercise to be very important. In it, two or three people from
the Network of People Living with HIV address the health workers and answer their questions.
Hearing first-hand about the lives of people living with HIV and how they are treated by their
families, workmates, communities and health workers helps to make stigma real for health workers.
Objectives: By the end of this session, participants will be able to:
a) Name some of the forms of stigma experienced by people living with HIV; and
b) Describe the feelings of being stigmatized.
Time: 1 hour
Materials and preparation: Invite guest speakers (people living with HIV) and brief them
beforehand on how to give their testimonies. Ask them to:
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Talk about your own life and the life of your family before and after getting HIV. Talk about
how you were treated in the family, in the community and in health facilities once people
discovered you were HIV-positive – and how it made you feel.
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If possible use your own stories to get health workers talking about their own experience
with stigma – examples they have they seen or heard about stigma.
■■Steps:
1. TESTIMONIES: Ask each speaker to tell his or her story and invite participants to ask questions
to clarify the story. Focus on the experience of the speakers, but also encourage participants to
respond to the stories with their own examples of stigma in the community or health settings.
Have you seen or heard of things like this?
See example of a testimony on the next page.
2. PROCESSING: Ask–
a) What were the main forms of stigma identified in the stories?
b) What should/would be your responsibility and response, as health care providers, in similar
situations?
Sample Responses: Stigma and discrimination in the story (on the following page)
Stigma in the family
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Person living with HIV is verbally abused by other family members – mother-in-law
blames her for her husband’s infection.
Stigma in the community
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Neighbors gossip once they discovered she had HIV.
People stopped buying goods from the family shop.
Neighbors stopped their children playing with her son.
Stigma in the health facility
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No confidentiality – letting other staff and patients know her status.
No proper counseling – no comfort, encouragement or reassurance.
Chapter A: HIV Stigma – Naming and Owning the Problem n 33