Let Communities Lead: Let Communities Lead
On this year's World AIDS Day, UNAIDS, the United Nations AIDS Program, has set the main theme as "Let Communities Lead" or translated into Thai as "Let Communities Lead". After reading, you may wonder why it has to be a community and where will it lead when the problems of AIDS and HIV do not seem as serious as before. But if we try to look back at ourselves, yes, we are part of the "community" that will have people around us, whether it is friends in the community on Facebook, Twitter, IG, or friends with whom we have party plans. These are the ones who will join in "leading the way" to ending the AIDS problem in the next 7 years or 2573.
Who is the community and how can they help?
The community or all of us are the people who may or may not be working in this field, and may or may not be related to people living with HIV. They are the most important factor in ending the AIDS problem. We can create and disseminate important knowledge when we know that AIDS has many ways to prevent it. Even if you get HIV, people living with HIV can take antiretroviral drugs and live like normal people, or U=U. And prevention these days is diverse, whether it's basic prevention like condoms, PrEP, PEP, which are easily available at civil society clinics or at government hospitals for free. This knowledge is what the community pushes from ourselves, so that AIDS and HIV are no longer scary things, and makes the long journey of AIDS of more than 40 years have 7 years left in the final stretch to end it.
Is access to HIV services really good now?
And do you believe that the final stretch is the most challenging, that we are about to reach in 2030? Honestly, I believe that our country will be able to have no deaths from AIDS within that year. But we have to encourage leadership and strengthen the role of the community in the AIDS problem. Along with support from the government and international organizations to fill in the gaps that are currently lacking, such as access to rights that may sometimes be accessible and sometimes not, dispensing antiretroviral drugs that sometimes run out, or receiving PrEP that should be available to youth without parental consent, the community is an important part of making these changes happen.
Stigma and discrimination still do not end in Thai society.
In addition to the rights to prevention and access, another thing that the community must help with is stigma and discrimination against people living with HIV or key populations. Stigma is a word that everyone hears very often, but you may not know what stigma is. For example, if you are a service worker, people are ready to stigmatize you as being at risk of AIDS. And when you go to a hospital and get sick, you are often given poor treatment or poor treatment. This type of case can happen in both the LGBTQI+ group, service worker groups, and substance users. The community is an important mechanism to come out and monitor these services to make them user-friendly, free from stigma and discrimination.
What should we do as a community?
Finally, what can everyone do as a member of the community? Support activities done by the community, spread knowledge about AIDS and HIV, whether it is prevention, blood test channels, information, or being a voice for services that stigmatize and discriminate against us or people living with HIV. Everyone just needs to start “guiding” those who don’t know to let them know. And there is one sentence that is the main idea of this year as well: “Nothing concerns us without us.” That is, everyone is a part of helping to end this problem. One hand at a time, and the day when AIDS will be eliminated from this disease will come.
#WorldAidsDays2023 #testBKK #APCOM
