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The Advocacy project was started by the UK Coalition in 1996. Originally
it was a pilot six-month research project. The idea was to find out about
the practical problems that positive people face in their day-to-day lives.
We wanted to build up an accurate picture of how positive people were
treated, and the special problems they faced. We could then lobby for
changes.
There was another agenda to the project as well. It was peer-led and run
from the start. Almost all advocates were HIV positive themselves, and
the few that weren't were closely affected. They often had direct experience
of the problems that were presented to them.
The project also had an ethos of self-help. The idea was that a client
would 'own' their own problem. The advocate would equip the client with
relevant support, information and advice: but the client would take control
of the situation and hopefully work out their own solutions.
The confidence that this approach instilled in people is borne out in
the number of clients who subsequently became volunteer advocates themselves.
Some went on to do the same kind of work in a paid capacity.
The project quickly built a reputation for being effective and accessible.
If you were
about to be made homeless, you could come in or be visited that day, rather than have to wait weeks - unfortunately a common experience with
