HIV Justice and Love
It’s Valentine’s Month! February is historically the month of love, and a time to show and share the love.
The HIV Justice Network is pleased to support campaigns in the month of love – February – focusing on HIV-positive living, loving, and justice.
Given the difficulty that some people living with HIV can face when it comes to finding love, including negotiating disclosure, sex for pleasure and/or creating a family in the context of HIV criminalisation, it is important to acknowledge that everyone is deserving of love and affirmation.
To this end, the HIV Justice Network wishes to acknowledge the following Valentine’s campaigns for and about people living with HIV.
#LovePositiveWomen Campaign
The #LovePositiveWomen campaign is a global initiative running every Feb 1st-14th for each of us to express, share and support women living with HIV or as a friend of the community. It was developed and led by the International Community of Women Living with HIV (ICW), one of seven founding partners of HIV JUSTICE WORLDWIDE.
The campaign uses social media to link local grassroots gestures of love to each other. Using Valentines Day as a backdrop, #LovePositiveWomen “creates a platform for individuals and communities to engage in public and private acts of love and caring for women living with HIV.”
Going beyond romantic love to deep community love and social justice, the campaign is also a call to action. The HIV Justice Network has been supporting this campaign since 2017.
“#LovePositiveWomen is a response to the lack of attention and support and to make commitments. It requires participants to spend time reflecting on how they as either a woman living with HIV or an ally will commit to loving women living with HIV. Through action, change can be made to fueling economies of love and compassion. Working from a place of strength, it focuses on the idea of interconnectedness, relationship building, loving oneself, and loving one’s community. By starting from a place of love, within oneself, there are endless ways that the negative impacts that HIV has on women living with HIV can be lessened.”
You can follow the conversation using #LovePositiveWomen on social media.
#LoveandAccountability Campaign – What are you loving?
Initiated by Accountability International, their annual Valentine’s campaign has focused on a variety of thematic areas including consent, Resolution 275, and challenging criminalisation, among others.
For this year, their focus will feature some key messages around love, advocacy, human rights, justice, and accountability.
“Accountability International is well known for our fun and innovative Valentine’s Day campaigns and our collaborative, diverse, and inclusive way of working, so this year we have decided to put our Valentine’s campaign on steroids.”
Watch out for HJN’s Executive Director to be a part of the campaign, which uses the hashtags #LoveandAccountability and #LoveandHumanRights.
With love,
The HJN Team