POSITIVE LIVES

The Problem

Positive Lives refers to living positively with HIV and overcoming the myriad of problems that HIV positive people around the world face including: 

• accessing appropriate treatment and care services
• managing and dealing with side effects of medication
• loss of employment and income
• stigma and isolation
   

We believe that positive people are the best placed to identify these issues and find appropriate solutions; they should be central to decision making on these at a local, national and international level. We therefore align our programming to the GIPA principles of "Greater Involvement of People Living with HIV and AIDS".
 

Our Response

The Elton John AIDS Foundation has worked with positive people's groups and networks around the world to help them to both support their members and advocate on their behalf, raising the profile and voice of people living with HIV/AIDS and influencing the type of HIV/AIDS treatment and care services provided. We supported the establishment of the first national positive people's network in the Ukraine, an organisation that now supports 15,000 people per month and has been selected as the Global Fund's 'principle recipient' of its $151 million funding in Ukraine.
  

In the early days EJAF funded many home based and palliative care programmes to ease the pain of those that were dying. Now, happily, with the advent of effective antiretroviral treatment our funding focus has shifted towards positive living. Our current focus is on expanding access to a continuum of care including counselling, testing, treatment, nutritional, social and emotional support as well as palliative care as required.
     

We also support initiatives that seek to increase access to HIV and treatment information, helping people to understand their condition and their options better. This has included supporting AEGiS, i-base and NAM. Further to this we have funded positive living programmes that seek to empower positive people and equip them with the practical and emotional skills they need to manage their condition successfully.    
    

For more information on some of our current programmes on this theme, please click on one of the projects featured above.
 

To learn more about which countries feature this theme as a current funding priority for us please see our country and grant strategy pages. 

Positive Lives theme photograph copyright Julie Remy.