32 minutes | Thursday, 1 December 2022
This World AIDS Day we're getting together with people from leading UK regional HIV organisations looking at charity and community and the role they have played in the response to the HIV pandemic.
With the absence of support from society generally, a hostile media and the initial medical outlook so bleak, it became the job of the community to provide hope and emotional support at first. But some of the initial groups are still with us and going strong pushing back on stigma and providing upto date education to a world that seems to have its view of HIV firmly set in a different age.
Graeme Smith chats to the people in charge at Thames Valley Positive Support in Berkshire and George House Trust in Manchester. Both vital lifelines for people living with HIV since 1985.
We're talking about how U+U and prep have changed the game and how a huge number of HIV positive people have lived in fear of being criminalised even until recently. We're also talking about the rights of people living with HIV when it comes to getting tattoos.
In an episode packed with queer history, old news reports, first hand accounts and some exceptionally raw and personal reflection. We're also hearing how Manchester Pride this year took a moment to reflect at the annual HIV vigil with the reading of poem This Quilted History, written and read at the event by Jay Mitra leading the candlelit reflection. It sounds even more poignant this world aids day.
With thanks to Sarah Macadam the Chief Executive of Thames Valley Positive Support, Jessica Harding, deputy CEO at TVPS, The HIV Podcast, Darren Knight, the CEO of George House trust and to Jay Mitra.