Doreen Moracha, HIV social media advocate from Kenya. My name is Doreen Moracha. I am living with HIV. So my story with HIV is, I was born with HIV. I think I was told about my status when I was 13, but my parents knew about it when I was officially diagnosed. When I was, I was 8. When I was 23 is when I publicly started living with HIV, and that is because there were no young voices I knew at the time that were talking about HIV. We are HIV positive, yes, but even if you don't have HIV, I'm going to make HIV your business. Because until we bring everybody on board until everybody understands that they have a role to play, they need to get educated, they need to get informed about HIV, then we will keep leaving people behind. Every person I have met who has one stigmatising thought or another, usually comes from a point of misinformation. For us to dispel the myths and misconceptions is educate them. We should not get tired of educating the people. We should not get tired of normalising the HIV conversation. We should not get tired of having more voices speak around HIV. I encourage you to go and get tested. I encourage you to start treatment. There is a life beyond your HIV status, but you have to accept your HIV status. You just have to. Acceptance is the major, major way of handling self stigma. It's an everyday job. You wake up every day, you choose life, you choose yourself, you choose to take your ARVs and you choose to live one extra day beyond your HIV diagnosis.
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