© AIDES HIV-positive
Helping people affected to speak out
The strategies that are guiding our work between 2005 and 2007 confirm this choice. Wherever AIDES has a presence, it does all it can to encourage people to speak out. In our branches and small groups, people get together to talk about the difficulties they encounter and work together to find possible solutions. They construct appropriate answers from their own experiences and daily failures and small victories. A number of key periods in AIDES’ life are dedicated to expression. The conferences that we hold every year offer an atmosphere of freedom and confidentiality ideal for speaking out. “AIDES and You”, the annual survey that we carry out amongst the people who contact the association, offers an outstanding view of people’s lives. Every year it offers an opportunity to check how accurate our understanding is and how valuable are the ideas that we are upholding.
In 2005, the number of discussion groups increased all over France. The conference, held in Lyon, was dedicated to migrants. They came to remind us, as if we needed it, how closely connected our national and international struggles were. Unequal access to treatment in the world means that people are forced to migrate. In France, more than a third of the new contaminations diagnosed involve migrants, and the epidemic is rapidly gaining ground amongst women. A meeting organised in Paris in 2005 for over 80 women from all over Europe contained the moments of emotion, personal experience and debate that we need in order to build a new collective strategy.
The association wants to help:
- to help people speak,
- to help people share,
- to help people recover their dignity,
- to help people come together in order to be stronger,
- and to help people fight with the others against the epidemic.
