UNAIDS: The First 10 Years

UNAIDS The First 10 Years12in so doing, to combat stigmaand discrimination. TASO hasbecome a role model for similarorganizations around the world,spreading its philosophy of‘Living positively with AIDS’.As Kaleeba explained, ‘… atthat time the public healthmessages were saying “Bewareof AIDS, AIDS kills.”… Therewere no messages for peoplewho were already infected.What was implied was thatpeople who were already infected should die and get it over with. We adopted the sloganof “living positively with AIDS” in direct defiance of that perception. We emphasised livingrather than dying with AIDS. For us it was the quality rather than the quantity of life whichwas important’ 12 .AIDS activist NoerineKaleeba who foundedThe AIDS SupportOrganisation inUganda.UNAIDS/P.VirotElhadj As Sy, who worked in Senegal for ENDA Tiers Monde, a nongovernmental organizationon environment and development, and is now Director of Partnerships and ExternalRelations at UNAIDS, co-founded 13 the African Network of AIDS Service Organizations.He recalled that in those days, when few resources were available and stigma was rife,poor African communities displayed ‘a good sense of solidarity, supporting each other,spending their last cent and taking care of their loved ones travelling miles and miles fortreatment, whatever they thought could help. There were times when I’d say to myself“Why did we need an epidemic like HIV/AIDS to see this?”’For Zackie Achmat, his and others’ early activism around AIDS in South Africa was partlyabout equality for gay people, and partly because, in the apartheid era, in the mid-1980s,the HIV test was being used for discriminatory purposes. He explained: “It [the test] wasbeing used against Malawian miners to try and exclude people from employment. Itbecame very clear … that what HIV was going to do was … to utilize or reinforce existinginequalities. It became very clear to me at the outset that HIV was going to be a humanrights issue”.12Kaleeba N with Ray S and Willmore B (1991). We miss you all. Noerine Kaleeba: AIDS in the family. Harare,Women and AIDS Support Network.13The following people contributed to the creation of the Network: Mazuwa Banda, then Chair of the SouthernAfrican Network of AIDS Organizations, and now with WHO; Hakima Himmich, then Chair of the AssociationMarocaine de Lutte Contre le Sida, and Convener of the Northern African Network of AIDS ServiceOrganizations; and Richard Burzynski, of the International Council of AIDS Service Organizations (ICASO).As Sy was also supported by two colleagues from ENDA – Tiers Monde, Abdelkader Bacha, now with theInternational HIV/AIDS Alliance, and Moustapha Gueye, now with UNDP.