By Pauline Odhiambo
Nearly 1.5 million people in Kenya live with HIV. To the world, that's a cold statistic.
For Doreen Moraa Moracha, who was unaware of her HIV-positive status until she was 13, it's an unapologetic affirmation of who she is and why her life doesn't have to stop just because the virus lives within her.
"My parents discovered I was HIV-positive when I was eight, but they kept it from me because my doctor didn't think I would live till adulthood," Doreen tells TRT Afrika.
"The doctor suggested that I be taken to live in a care facility for children with HIV because I was constantly sick. My parents were totally against the idea."
Many years later, Doreen is living an everyday life and is advocating to remove dogmas surrounding the disease.
As the founder of "I am a Beautiful Story", a digital initiative helping people living with HIV that began on Facebook in 2015 before spreading to other platforms, Doreen has evolved into a confident person who encourages thousands of people affected by the virus to take the challenges head-on.
Doreen has chosen 'Yes, I have HIV' as her username on social media as part of her advocacy to tackle stigma.
"I acknowledge my status upfront. I live a healthy, normal life like everybody else."
Learning to be positive
Born to a serodiscordant couple — her mother is HIV-positive, but her father isn't — Doreen says that being on antiretroviral medication (ARVs) has made her viral load undetectable and non-transmittable.
Along the way, the 31-year-old has prepared herself to maintain a positive mindset while helping others cope with the challenges of living with HIV.
According to the World Health Organisation, as many as half of all HIV-positive people globally in long-term relationships have HIV-negative partners – forming what are known as serodiscordant couples.
It is estimated that half the 39 million people worldwide living with HIV still do not know that they are infected. Also, many people in relationships do not know their partner's status.
"My father knew his status all along and was HIV-negative by the time of his death last year. My three older siblings are also HIV-negative, but our youngest brother had the virus, and he died aged three from HIV-related complications," says Doreen.
Encountering stigma
By the time of her brother's passing, Doreen was still unaware she had HIV, and was sent to live with relatives during the preparations for his burial. In hindsight, that's when she began noticing the stigma attached to her condition.
"I remember using separate utensils. Even my clothes were washed separately from those of my relatives," she says, recounting an instance of chaos erupting in the household after she drank from a cup not assigned to her.
Doreen also remembers constantly having to move from town to town because her mother, a teacher, feared that her colleagues, relatives or friends of the family would know about their status and break the news to her.
"I was in boarding school and lying to my classmates that I had a heart condition that required me to take medication daily," she says. After graduating from high school, Doreen experienced medication fatigue and stopped taking ARVs for two years.
"I had been on treatment for nearly seven years till this point, but I was so tired of constantly taking medication. So, I just stopped," she explains. "My viral load went up, and my throat became so swollen that I couldn't eat. All my food had to be blended."
After receiving counselling and no longer wanting to be in pain, Doreen got back on ARVs.
Moment of truth
Doreen kept her HIV status a secret until she got a job at the Teachers' Service Commission in Kenya in 2015. As fate would have it, she was assigned to a wellness department formerly called the AIDS Control Unit.
"We used to provide testing and counselling services, and that's when I realised that a lot of people in Kenya don't have the culture of HIV testing. They assume they don't have HIV," she says.
"One of the people I was working with knew my status and encouraged me to go public to show people the importance of HIV testing as well to diminish the stigma."
After months of struggle with the idea, Doreen wrote an email to the editor of a local daily, describing what it was like to be a young person in Kenya with HIV.
"I didn't even think I would get a reply from the editor, but I did. My story was published on the daily’s website along with my email. By the end of the day, I got more than 1,000 messages," she recounts.
Once her surprise at the deluge of messages wore off, Doreen contemplated creating a forum for people like her.
"That's basically how I started 'I am a Beautiful Story'," she says of her digital initiative.
"I post photos and videos with a snippet of my story. At other times, I share some of the stories I receive in my inbox from other people affected by HIV. I created a safe space to reassure people living with HIV that we are more than just our diagnosis.''
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