Eliane

At age 26, Eliane moved with her husband from Burundi to Angola and has been living with type 2 diabetes in Angola. When she started attending a new hospital there for her diabetes, she was told she was diagnosed with HIV positive. Being shocked and emotional, she asked the female doctor if she would still be able to have children, and the doctor replied, “You are better off going and buying yourself a coffin” Eliane went to South Africa to obtain treatment, and on her way back from visits she would smuggle her ARV’s inside her baby daughter’s cuddly toys and dolls just so she would be caught by customs as if she was found with ARV medications, she would not have been allowed to re-enter Luanda. Eliane has been stigmatized several times in Holland, where she now lives with her children and Dutch husband. Despite everything stigma, Eliane still keeps her head up and refuses to give in to negative thoughts. She came out and started sharing her HIV status to raise awareness, break down fear and stigma barriers around PLWHIV, and show you can live normally with HIV. Eliane expresses time and time again that HIV does not change who I am; I am healthy. She is also very active in her community and helps other Africans in Holland living with HIV and provides peer support and education to them. Eliane has been living healthily for the last 20 years with HIV.