It has been nearly one year since I met Nguyet but I still remember our first meeting exactly. That day, travelling from the hub of Ho Chi Minh City in the early morning, we arrived at the office of the Morning Sunlight self-help group for people living with HIV at around 8.30am.
At 22 years old, Matilde Alfiado and her friends aren’t afraid to ask for condoms. In the northern Mozambican costal village of Vilanculos, HIV/AIDS prevalence has reached 12.5% and general understanding of HIV is low.
Two years ago, 28 year-old Jose Cossa, thought his life was over. He was tired and afraid, his girlfriend had left him and he lost his job because he was too sick to get up to go to work. He had contracted tuberculosis as a secondary infection to what was later to be determined to be HIV/AIDS.
The road to Kabiya village, in the eastern province of Zambia, is red and dusty. Tobacco fields stretch off in either direction. Christine Jere sits on the ground outside her mud-and-thatch hut in Kabiya and tells the story of how she nearly died of AIDS.
In FY2023, CARE worked around the world, contributing to saving lives, fighting poverty, and increasing social justice.
