If I kept it to myself - World YWCA

If I kept it to myself
challenge. Many women and children are facing
difficult situations. It was this realisation of the
hardship of women and young girls infected and
affected by HIV and AIDS that prompted me
to establish a specific Network of HIV positive
women. Members would meet rotationally at
each other’s homes realising that as women
living with HIV, there is need to help each other
with both psychosocial and physical support
and speak out on issues through Advocacy and
empowerment. As women living with HIV, we
needed to do something to change our lives
for the better and improve our families’ living
standards through income generating activities.
In addition, members wanted to work together
to overcome stigma and discrimination in our
community in an attempt to curb the spread of
HIV among young people.
Positive Women in Action and Development
(PWAD) was established to increase awareness
of social, sexual and reproductive health rights
and treatment literacy of women and girls
infected and affected by HIV and AIDS. Our
country has a women’s rights and empowerment
policy but it is important to have it translated
into law. Currently the network and other stake
holders in women rights advocacy are lobbying
the Parliamentary Committee on Gender and
AIDS with the Centre for Human Rights. As
members of the International Community of
Women living with HIV and AIDS (ICW), we
receive empowering information materials,
which help our network in advocacy and women
empowerment skills. The Positive Women’s
Survival Kit, publications on positive women’s
rights and on Microbicides empowers women
to effectively discuss needs and influence the
advocacy plan.
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I founded the PWAD Network in Malawi after
attending the Young Women’s Dialogue (YWD)
in Durban, South Africa (April 2004) organized
by ICW. The issues that were raised at the YWD
and WHO’s 3 by 5 planning meeting challenged
me to become more familiar with issues facing
positive women and girls in Malawi and find
ways to address them. After the YWD, I was
sponsored by the United Nations Development
Fund for Women (UNIFEM) to attend a women’s
exchange and empowerment study tour in
South Africa. This gave me an opportunity to
learn from others who are involved in women’s
organisations and doing work concerning women
and AIDS. Due to the problems we are going
through, I realised that I should make my voice
heard for the rights of women and girls living with
HIV and AIDS in my country.
Today, PWAD is a registered network of women
living with HIV and AIDS in Malawi, with 9
branches around the country. The Roman
Catholic Church in Lilongwe gave us some office
space to use until we are able to get a place of
our own. The other branches are meeting under
a tree or in traditional authority premises and
nearest schools or churches. Our organisation
has no funding for operational costs or for the
women’s programmes; however, we received
US$ 4,000 from the Global Fund to do home
based care (HBC) training and to buy HBC kits
and US$15,000 for the orphans and vulnerable
children programme and widows economic
empowerment. We have written several
proposals for our project and our main focus is
advocacy, empowerment, capacity building and
psychosocial support. With limited resource, the
women are producing handicrafts to support their
own activities.