Secrets Are Out
February 11th, 2020
Imagine you are HIV-positive.
Perhaps you feel ashamed, confused, or you're still in denial. You're doing well on your ART (antiretroviral treatment) treatment, so you can't spread the virus to others, but you still keep your HIV status a secret. Your partner doesn't know. Your friends don't know. You feel alone.
Your local treatment facility offers a meeting for people just like you on ART. The event is optional. You can go in to learn more about your care, connect with others on ART, and you get a FREE dinner! Food has been sparse at home lately, you're hungry and you want to not be controlled by this secret that's making you feel so isolated...
...but what if you see someone there you know? What if someone finds out? What if that person then gossips and tells your whole community about you and those people distance themselves from you.
Would YOU go to that meeting?
On February 11th, we gave ART patients the option to come in for an ART meeting. We weren't sure who would show up and how the evening would go.
Thirty-five patients walked through the door that night.
"At arrival most of them were scared." - Irene Oluka, Head of Health
Some people came into the room and saw their partner, others found their neighbors, some sex workers found their customers. Their secrets were out.
Some of the patients were previously open about their HIV-positive status, but many of them hid their status out of fear. Fear of rejection. Fear of being discriminated against. Lots of fear. We gave our ART patients the opportunity to hand off this burden they're carrying to God, to choose freedom in truth, and to come in to be further educated and comforted by creating a support system.
For many, this night as a big step in revealing their status to that room of people, but they might still keep their HIV-status confidential and that’s ok. At least now they have a safe space to open up.
"We emphasized confidentiality and by the time we finished, the freedom and excitement was tangible. They even begged us to have these meetings more often. I felt to the biggest extent that stigma was conquered. My appreciation goes out to Joan our counselor, Dr. Gavin, and Nurse Nicholas for helping with this meeting."
At Cherish, we are overwhelmingly encouraged by days like this. People like you have supported Cherish Uganda so that we can rewrite the story of stigma and change the story of HIV into a story of hope. We have been hard at work for over 13 years and these 35 people feeling free and encouraged in this meeting is a huge step for how stigma and fear are being conquered in the community we’re creating.
Many of the patients in that gathering have children enrolled in Cherish schools. Through our various programs, we’re able to minister to families from different angles. Our students get to hear of God’s love everyday that they walk into the classroom, and these meetings will give us the opportunity to tell adults that God loves them, He wants them to live freely, and He wants to lift the weight these worries and burdens put on their shoulders. As the HIV-positive adults learn to overcome stigma their children will catch on and the story of HIV will further change in homes to a story of hope.
Cherish Health Center will host more of these meetings, inviting HIV-positive individuals to join together, break bread, and encourage each other over a meal.
“Our aim is to educate people so we can fight stigma and promote good adherence. Amongst them were people willing to share their stories (we call them expert clients), so they encouraged each other to live positively. We also talked about how they can improve their standards of living with the little they have. For us, that day was the beginning of conquering stigma.” - Irene O.
The above photo is not from the ART meeting, but from Februarys antenatal meeting. We are hosting monthly antenatal meetings for expectant mothers.
Are you a medical professional that would be interested in traveling to Uganda to help us put on medical outreaches? We need your help during summer 2020!
We’re looking for doctors, nurses, and/or dentists to serve alongside our health center team during the week of July 27-31. If you’re interested in joining on this once in a lifetime trip to help provide quality healthcare to underserved people in the communities surrounding Cherish Uganda, please reach out to Kathleen Spillman at kathleen@cherishuganda.org