Her eyes opened wide staring at HIV test results. The word ‘positive’ seemed scream at her shattering her world. She felt like her life was over.
Her eyes opened wide staring at HIV test results. The word ‘positive’ seemed scream at her shattering her world. She felt like her life was over. She had now come to the reality of the cause of her prolonged illness. For a long time, Hawa Kabichi, a 66 years old woman from Chilongo Village, TA Jalasi, Mangochi had been on and off suffering from one sickness to another. She had shingles and had lost a lot of weight. She had been visiting witchdoctors but nothing changed. Days turned into weeks and weeks into months until her friend Margret Chiwina, a person living with HIV told her to visit Namwera hospital after observing her symptoms. She finally gathered courage to visit the hospital after a long period of sickness.
In the early 20s, accessing ARVs was not as easy as it is nowadays. After receiving her results at Namwera Health Centre, she needed assistance to visit a bigger hospital. The hospital referred her to Needed Actions for Community Care and Development (NACC) in those days called Namwera Coordinating Committee which was providing psychosocial support and transportation services for people with HIV to access medical care.
NACC took Kabichi to Mulibwanji hospital where she started receiving Antiretroviral (ARV) drug and continued to provide psychosocial support to Kabichi to deal with stigma and discrimination. NACC gave Kabichi a goat to start livestock farming for her nutritional and economic benefit. The goats multiplied which she sells to pay school fees for her children and fend for her family.
“My daughter also travelled to south Africa using the same money.”. NACCs support helped me find purpose, love, and hope. Now am living a comfortable life HIV doesn’t define me. I am grateful for their unwavering commitment to my well-being’’ she proudly said
Kabichi says since she accepted her condition, she is living a positive life and is not even ashamed to tell the world she is HIV positive.
“HIV does not define me It is just a condition but I am as good as anyone else,” She said.
“I encourage people living with HIV to adhere to ARVs, to have low viral load and seek medical check-ups from time to time in order to know their viral load. For those who are not HIV positive, may they continue taking care of themselves.” She advised.