05 December 2002

Bonn, Germany: Stacey Feona Wilson lives with HIV/AIDS - and she has devoted her life to help others avoid the epidemic. The mother of a nine-year-old girl, Stacey is a UN Volunteer in her native Guyana. "My participation as a UN Volunteer in the fight against HIV/AIDS has helped me to deal with being seropositive," she says. "My daughter has been very understanding and tolerant. This has also helped me very much."

Since 2000, about 50 UN Volunteers living with HIV/AIDS in the Caribbean have confronted the discrimination related to the epidemic. In Cuba, Dominican Republic, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago they have played active roles in a network of seropositive persons who have learned to summon their courage and no longer conceal their medical condition out of fear for personal, social and professional consequences.

The HIV/AIDS support network in the Caribbean is similar to initiatives in Africa where the United Nations Volunteers programme (UNV) has been working in partnership with the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).

"We are trying to instill a change of attitude in those who are seropositive to encourage them to work together with our volunteers for the common cause of fighting the spread of the virus," says Ainsley Reid, director and co-founder of the Jamaican network of people living with HIV/AIDS. The Jamaican, who served as a UN Volunteer in his country, has been living with the virus since 1992.

In the Caribbean - the region with the highest infection rate in the Americas and second highest in the world after sub-Saharan Africa - UN Volunteers are carrying out a campaign to curb the epidemic in collaboration with institutions at all levels. Having taken part in their countries' official delegations on HIV/AIDS at the United Nations General Assembly, the volunteers strive to ensure that the scope of the epidemic is publicly recognized and that laws are passed to safeguard the rights of seropositive citizens to receive medical treatment. "I am pleased to say that the young people that I have mobilized during my service with the UNV programme continue to participate actively in the network of people against HIV/AIDS. Some of these direct self-help groups for those who are seropositive," says Ainsley.

The HIV/AIDS networks have helped bring about a positive change of behaviour among infected persons who until now have had little opportunity to share information, experiences, advice or even contacts. "We should ensure that these forums of exchange are easily accessible to young people and women considered to be part of vulnerable groups," says Angelique Sanchez of Suriname. In her country, the UN Volunteer and her colleagues work to inform business leaders and their workers about HIV/AIDS prevention and the condition of people living with the virus. Their campaign, "AIDS in the working world", marked the opening of a training session for judges on the rights of infected persons.

Each day, volunteers face the grim reality of the epidemic - its social stigma, difficult socio-economic conditions, lack of resources, low literacy rate and social exclusion. They visit patients and their families, give advice to nurses and midwives in hospitals and train personnel who do not normally handle HIV/AIDS cases on what to do.

The Caribbean network is innovative in its regional approach to combat HIV/AIDS. Based in Trinidad and Tobago, it takes advantage of cultural similarities and proximity of islands to unite the countries of the Caribbean, a region where migration is common and the risk of infection is high. UN Volunteer Harish Raja, serving within the framework of the United Nations Information Technology Service (UNITeS), supports this regional network to help curb the epidemic. "I train HIV-infected people in new information and communication technologies to set up future contact networks among those infected in the same country or from the region." From his base in Trinidad, the UN Volunteer from India shows that by linking up people he helps to unite them as they cope with the reality of HIV/AIDS.