'Positive Living' Association

Positive Living Association is an idea created by the caregivers of the International Health Care Center (IHCC). The Clinic is a sister organization of the West African AIDS Foundation (WAAF) and therefore deals among other things with a lot of HIV/AIDS positive clients. Majorities of the HIV positive patients seen at the clinic are from marginalized groups in society and as a result, the clinic faces a lot of challenges.
Many a time when patients come to the clinic, they do not only come with medical problems but with a whole lot of other social problems:

Stigmatization
Due to the stigma that goes with HIV/AIDS in the country, being HIV positive comes with a whole lot of problems.
People refusing to go to work simply because they do not want to be confronted by colleagues. Landlords evicting tenants from their houses because of their status, or because of them not being in the position to pay their rent because they are not working and don’t have the money.

Lack of support
Sick people not getting any support from families because they feel ashamed to be having an HIV positive person in the family that has disgraced them etc. Parents are not able to pay their children’s school fees simply because they do not have the money.

The caregivers at the clinic face these problems on a daily basis. Many a time they have had to fall in for a lot of their patients. For instance helping with transportation fees and assisting in many other ways to help a person in need. It was facing all these challenges that led to the idea of setting up an association of HIV positive people who are prepared to do something to help them selves.‘Positive Living’ was primarily set up to work with and help People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA’s).

Vision

Developing a POSITIVE group of PLWHA’s, capable of making their lives meaningful.

Objectives

• Providing psycho-social counseling for PLWHA’s.

• Mobilizing PLWHA’s in creating and offering the necessary financial and logistic support to help themselves in society.

• Contacting and networking with other relevant groups, organizations and agencies to share experiences, knowledge and resources.

• To engage non working PLWHA’s in other income generating activities.

• To encourage working PLWHA’s to remain working.

• To give (subsidized) medical care to PLWHA’s.