In Pernambuco, people with HIV have been coordinating an institution on the condition for 21 years

Credit: Disclosure

By: Eduarda Nunes – Lupa do Bem / Favela em Pauta

The HIV outbreak and the AIDS pandemic date back to the 1980s, and a decade later, in 1993, drugs that treat the disease (Zidovudine or AZT) began to be manufactured in Brazil. Along with this event, the Prevention Theater in Pernambuco also began to develop.

The group is formed by people living with HIV and who saw in AZT a possibility to live and no longer just wait for death because they are carriers of the virus. Together, the five members staged plays in various places, taking messages with the aim of reducing discrimination and prejudice.

Currently, only two continue to collaborate with the organization, the others have died or are sick because of opportunistic diseases that, due to the virus in its untreated form, are more predisposed to the worsening of other diseases due to the weakening of the immune system. 

In 1998, with the support of a friend of Wladimir Reis, who is now the group’s general coordinator, the Prevention Theater began to organize itself as a working group with regular meetings. The group benefited from ASW, a German feminist institution, which financed two years of renting the space used by the group, as well as supporting actions and activities aimed at people living with HIV.

In December 2000, the group became a non-governmental, non-profit community-based organization, the Grupo de Trabalho Posithivo (GTP+).

“The need to make groups and subjects that are historically treated as objects of research, projects or state intervention protagonists of their causes, allied to the desire to build a broader terrain to guarantee human rights in Pernambuco, motivated the creation and development of our work”, says Wladimir.

Currently, the GTP+ adds up to a series of projects, awards and political participation over its 21 years of operation. The NGO’s fundraising takes place through public, private or international projects and donations.

Made by and for people living with HIV

In addition to the Prevention Theater, the GTP+ currently also works with other actions, such as the Merchants of Illusions, awareness-raising work and prevention of HIV and other STIs, and works to strengthen the self-esteem of LGBTQ+ people, sex workers and the population in situations of prison. To date, merchants have managed to serve more than four thousand people.

The organization works on the promotion of citizenship, human rights, prevention and care for HIV carriers. In addition to training actions, the institution also provides legal, psychological and social assistance to those seeking shelter.

In 2021, the GTP+ started the confectionery course at its Cozinha Solidária, a project that professionalises and employs its users in the area of food and also generates financial returns for the NGO.

To date, the working group has received seven awards, including international recognition, for its work.

HIV is not a death sentence

Although HIV treatment has been offered by the Unified Health System (SUS) for 25 years and carrying the virus is different from having AIDS, carriers continue to be the target of stigmas created in the 1980s.

Medicine has advanced to the point of making the virus undetectable and untransmittable, but social death and a lack of political will continue to make these people its victims. Currently, 920,000 Brazilians carry the virus and 94% of those undergoing treatment do not transmit the virus.

Initiatives such as the Posithivo Prevention Working Group are even more relevant because they are designed and managed by people living with HIV. The notions of promoting citizenship for those served by the NGO are thought of by people who are their peers.

In addition to HIV-positive people, GTP+’s activities include the transsexual population and sex workers, as well as other groups in situations of social vulnerability.

It was at GTP+ that people like Maria Clara de Sena, a trans woman and Human Rights activist who now lives in exile in Canada, learned about her rights and citizenship.

Through the Mercadores de Ilusão project, the then sex worker learned more about the NGO’s work, resumed her studies and became the first transsexual in the world to take up a position in a Torture Prevention Mechanism, a UN partner body.

Since 2017, Maria Clara has lived in Canada, due to persecution related to her work in prisons in Pernambuco.