Five years ago was the last time there was a UK Conference of People Living with HIV. That’s too long, but Positively Women, the National Long Term Survivors’ Group, UKC and the National Aids Trust have worked together to put that right.
The experts on HIV are the people that live with it. September’s conference in Leicester will be a tremendous opportunity for learning, and our chance to seize control of the debate about our lives and the way we live them.
Between now and then, there will be regional events to discuss the conference and look at how people are involved in the services provided for them. The conference itself has three main aims: skills building, fostering leadership, and creating sustainable networks of people with HIV. We will also hear feedback from the International Aids Conference being held in Bangkok in July. And we’ll do it for our benefit and no one else’s.
We’ve called the conference “Changing Tomorrow” because that’s what it’s all about: how you, your friends, anyone with HIV in the UK can manage the future. Why? Because we’ve got one, unlike most of the people with HIV in the world. Because we can’t just stay in bed for the rest of our lives. Because laws and discrimination affect people with HIV and we can work together to make changes. Because we have to find the best ways to take control of our own lives and make it clear we have a lot to give to the rest of society.
There’ll be lots to learn, loads of people to meet and plenty of fun. The number of places is limited. Get the application pack; apply online at www.ukcoalition.org/conference or write to: Conference, UKC, 250 Kennington Lane, London SE11 5RD, tel: 020 7564 2180.
See you in Leicester.
Bernard Forbes, Chairman, UKC
Linda Potticary, Chairman, Positively Women
Tom Matthews, National Long Term Survivors’ Group
Dame Ruth Runciman, Chair, National Aids Trust
We are receiving reports of further clampdowns on migrants with HIV in Britain. The Home Office appears to be hard and ordering more deportations.
A number of Africans have recently contacted Positive Nation to tell us that even after they have been given Exceptional Leave to Remain, the Home Office has appealed against this. It has ordered them to return to Africa where they face certain death without the antiretroviral drugs that the Home Office claims, against all the evidence, they can now obtain back home.
This is an issue of moral responsibility for the whole HIV positive population in Britain. It was HIV positive activists themselves, no one else, who fought long and hard over 20 years to get life-saving medicines available. And if it wasn’t for those brave heroes and heroines, many now sadly dead, few of us today would have the chance to lead a fairly normal life with HIV.
So while the tabloid press blames foreigners with HIV as ‘health tourists ripping off the NHS’, remember that we have a moral responsibility to fight for the rights of people living with HIV both here and around the world.
The British Empire took the wealth of countless nations around the world for centuries. Now some people from our former colonies want to come here to work, rebuild their lives, build a better future and, maybe, even get life-saving HIV treatments.
Remember that many parts of the British economy, and especially the NHS, would not function if it were not for skilled workers from abroad.
So now is the time that the community of people living with HIV in this
country gave something back and really began fighting for our brothers
and sisters
around the world.
Martin Flynn, News Editor
