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Plan's work is helping to empower marginalised people like Mariatou* - an HIV positive mother from Benin - to break down barriers and look to the future this World AIDS Day.
Mariatou lives in Couffo, a region in the south west of Benin with the country’s highest rate of people living with HIV and AIDS - 3.3% compared to the national prevalence of 1.7%.
Diagnosed positive seven years ago, Mariatou now heads up an association of nearly 100 members, all of whom are also positive.
They meet every Wednesday to share experiences and discuss how to extend the group’s income-generating activities - breeding rabbits and chickens, making garri (cassava flour) - as well as to explore microfinance opportunities, and the best ways to take care of children from households affected by HIV and AIDS.
Women taking part in a Plan Benin project to prevent mother-to-child HIV transmission
Mariatou's dynamism makes her the perfect candidate to counsel newly diagnosed mothers and to break down the stigma associated with being positive.
She works closely with a Plan project in the region that helps prevent mother-to-child transmission and makes home visits to check on people’s health, especially when they drop out of sight and stop attending the clinic.
Once the health workers from the Famille et Santé project know that a woman who is HIV positive falls pregnant, they distribute bed nets to help keep malaria at bay, provide advice on how to stay healthy and encourage her to use condoms.
The work is helping to change attitudes and lives. "AIDS snatched my husband from me and threatened to separate me from my only daughter. I found a new husband who is also HIV positive. At first he was ashamed and did not come to the association," says Mariatou.
"Through my work he now also testifies openly and he even speaks on the radio and television to sensitise people on HIV prevention. People don't believe I’m really sick because physically I look very well.”
The theme of this year's World AIDS Day, held every 1 December, is 'Getting to Zero': zero new HIV infections, zero discrimination and zero AIDS related deaths.
The latest data released by UNAIDS shows that new infections have fallen worldwide by nearly 20% in the last 10 years. Challenges remain however, especially in sub-Saharan Africa where young women are 8 times more likely than men to be HIV-positive.
By offering nutritional, educational and vocational training, as well as emotional and legal support for people living with HIV and AIDS and their families, Plan aims to empower often highly marginalised individuals so that they can take action and plan for their future.
As Mariatou says: "We meet to share our difficulties, by doing so we have started to become autonomous, to do something for ourselves."
*Name has been changed