UK News

Issue: 140

GMFA receives £5,000 in GlaxoSmithKline HIV: Positive about the Future competit

To mark the 21st anniversary of providing HIV treatment, GlaxoSmithKline has been supporting the HIV community to celebrate HIV positive lives through its 'HIV: Positive about the Future' photography competition.

People living with, or affected by, HIV were asked to send a photograph capturing a moment that made them positive about the future.

The quality of the images submitted was outstanding and, according to top London photographer, Mike Kear, judging the competition was a very emotional process. “But in the end the simplicity of the winning image – To Be In England In The Summer Time With The One I Love - and the sentiments expressed made it very compelling and the clear winner,” said Mike.

The winner, Dom Agius from Balham, South London, explained his choice of image, “The subject is my husband Mick. We will celebrate our 17th anniversary together this December. We discovered he was positive a month after we met in the January of 1992. In the first five years we were together we lost too many friends to AIDS related illnesses and, in an era preceding triple combinations, we never dared imagine we would see our 10th anniversary together let alone our 15th, 16th, 17th… 20th who knows how many more? This picture sums up for me an optimism and tough romanticism that I never thought we’d have the luxury of sharing.”

Matthew Hodson, Head of Programmes at GMFA – the gay men’s health charity, said, “We are thrilled to have been chosen as the recipient of this prize and hugely grateful to GlaxoSmithKline for running the competition and to Dom Agius for nominating us.”
He added, “The competition theme, of being positive about the future, means a lot to us here at GMFA. The winning image, and the words that Dom uses to describe it, remind us that HIV is a part of our community and our lives. A positive diagnosis still carries a heavy burden. Once you are infected there will always be the fear that you may pass the virus on to those whom you care about the most. This image captures that, and the hope that improved treatments have given us.”

“In the last year we launched the UK’s first information and advice website specifically for HIV-positive gay men and a campaign that recognises both the benefits and challenges that improvements in the medical treatment of HIV have brought to the lives of men living with the virus. This prize money will help us to continue with this much needed work." Hodson concluded.

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