‘HIV is manageable, but you need to be very disciplined’
When he tested positive for HIV 29 years ago, nurses at a clinic told Lumkile Sizila to go home and wait for his death.
He was devastated and he went home deflated.
“To test HIV positive then was like a death sentence, but I had heard about the work of the Treatment Action Campaign, and I approached them and got counselling,” he recalls.
Mr Sizila became a TAC activist himself and lived openly with his status, helping others to cope.
“We work at the TAC in Khayelitsha advocating for people living with HIV/Aids, those who have been raped and to improve basic human rights."
In 2004, he started antiretroviral (ARV) treatment and last December he celebrated 20 years of being on treatment... and being alive.
“It was not easy. Some of the people I started with defaulted and later died. HIV is manageable, but you need to be very disciplined,” he says.
Working as a counselor with the organisation Wolonani, he has become well known as a voice for those living with HIV/Aids who were not getting adequate medical treatment.
“As someone who is HIV positive, I felt I could do more to mobilise the community to ask the local government to provide antiviral drugs at no cost.
“I like working for my rights and the rights of the community. I started HIV support groups and felt that TAC was the platform where I could do more."
To date, he has been involved in many community activities spreading “positive living”.
“I like the fact that I work in the community I live in. I am passionate about my community, and I volunteer by passing out condoms, going to community meetings and working to create a safe place for women to go to if they have been raped."
Now he is part of the Movement for Change and Social Justice (MCSJ) and University Cape Town collaboration to improve community health and well-being through promoting community-researcher engagement, and, on Wednesday March 12, there will be a research indaba, at the JL Zwane Hall, in Gugulethu, promoting men’s health and well-being. The focus of this indaba is to provide research feedback and engagement on improving men’s health.
Men experience high levels of disease and death from TB, HIV, diabetes, hypertension and cancer and from violence and injury. This indaba will review relevant research to increase awareness, build social and research networks and consider the next steps for local solutions.
