PRECIOUS

I AM

I am a proud mom of a one month old baby girl. Soon I will need to juggle motherhood with my busy worklife. By profession I am a social worker and counselor. And I am the co-founder of Phenomenal Youths Association which supports young people living with HIV.

OPEN

When I found out I was HIV positive in 2007, I was devastated and kept asking myself why me? I withdrew from my loving family, friends, society and even from myself. I was always running away, and it got so bad that I often thought about dying as I believed this would be better than taking medication everyday.

When I finally accepted my HIV status, I realized that a lot of young people were going through the same challenges and were also finding it difficult to ask for help.

This is why I decided to come out publicly, to remind young people living with HIV that there is life after an HIV diagnosis. To share with them that it is important to never be hard on yourself.

Today, being well informed about HIV, I am grateful I gave birth to an HIV negative girl because of my undetectable viral load. And I am able to breastfeed her with confidence.

I am very happy that I am now able to share the importance of being undetectable with other young people. So they will also know they cannot transmit HIV and can have healthy babies. Just like me.