Today is National HIV Ageing Awareness Day – a day to celebrate and reflect on the rising number of people who are living long and full lives with HIV. One of the many myths surrounding HIV is that it is a life sentence which will at best completely alter how you live your life and at worst, will kill you. …
We need to talk about Stigma
One of most damaging parts of an HIV diagnosis is something that isn’t talked about much. The stigma around HIV means that many people become socially isolated. Some feel like once they have been diagnosed, they aren’t allowed to have personal or intimate relationships and find themselves with crippling loneliness which can lead to depression and other mental health problems. …
#HumansofHIV – Joan Anderson
In this series, Positive Life tells the story of the people involved in providing care for those living with and affected by HIV in Northern Ireland. This month we hear from Joan Anderson, a complimentary therapist who works at Positive Life one day a week, providing massages and other therapies to people living with HIV. “I try to create a …
GSK IMPACT Award Video
Last month, Positive Life won a GSK Impact Award for our work with people affected by and living with HIV in Northern Ireland. They made a short video about us which is now on our homepage and which you can watch below:
Positive Life wins big in London
The Science Museum in London has over 300,000 items, attracts 3.3 million visitors every year and on the 16 May it played host to the GSK IMPACT Awards. The awards are a national programme that recognise and reward the best small and medium sized charities that are doing excellent work to improve people’s health and wellbeing in communities across the …
Happy Valentine’s day and happy sexual health week 2019!
In Northern Ireland we really struggle to talk openly about sex and sexual health. There is a culture of embarrassment and shame about it which makes it easier to just avoid talking about sex and sexual health altogether. I call it the Northern Ireland effect – it’s founded in our conservative and often faith based beliefs around all things sexy!. …
Medical students join us to learn about the human impact of HIV diagnoses
For the past 3 weeks we’ve had the pleasure of having James and Leah join the team at Positive Life to gain an understanding of what it’s really like to live with HIV in 2019. Having studied Medicine at Queen’s University for the past 3 years, they have been taught how to diagnose HIV and know the different treatment options …
World AIDS 2018 – Testing up but stigma around HIV still needs challenged.
This week, Lloyd Russell-Moyle made headlines across the country for having the courage to stand up in the House of Commons and tell the world that he is HIV positive. The representative for Brighton Kemptown is the first MP to reveal his HIV status in the House of Commons. In his speech he said “I finally wanted to be able …
Good news on PrEP
It’s great to be able to talk about the latest very positive news from the Department of Health – not only has a significant amount of the recent Health Transformation Fund been allocated to Sexual Health, but specifically it means that a new £450,000 HIV prevention pilot programme will be rolled out. As part of that pilot project, Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis …
There is certainly a spring in our step…
As we officially saw the start of spring last week (I know, hard to believe) that can only mean one thing here at Positive Life – our annual Fundraiser is just around the corner. This year and back by popular demand, we are revisiting “Strictly” – we’ll be ‘tripping the light fantastic’ on Saturday 21st April 2018 at La Mon …