I first found out my status in 2006. I had the signs and symptoms that made me suspicious of that’s my status, because during that time, there was a lot of stigma and a lot of stories about HIV.
So I had that self-stigma because I could not tell anyone else about my status. I just disconnected myself completely from my family. And I left my life to the fate of the world to die.
My name is Margaret Odera. I am a 45-year-old mother, wife and a senior in the church. I work as a mentor mother and a community health worker.
My work is very, very important because one, first and foremost, I save lives. Community health workers save lives. I am an example of a life that was saved because I could have been dead by now. I really believe so. So a mentor mother, mentored me. I'm an example of somebody who never wanted to take ARVs, but I'm alive today because somebody persuaded me and assured me that ARVS are the way to go.
I got pregnant. So my fear was this child now, how I'm going to survive with this child?
I started going to the clinic and I decided let me face my fear.
And so a mentor mother, just gave a topic, the way I spoke today.
When I heard that, you can have a HIV negative baby. You can actually breastfeed for six months. You can give them drugs. That made me hopeful for the future.
The biggest challenges and the challenges that I see myself my past in, first is the disclosure most of the women don't want to disclose.
A mother, a woman will never tell the husband or the man she met that she is HIV positive.
Me, I got the courage of telling now my husband, who I live with, that I'm HIV positive because, before I went deeper into this, I plunged myself into the relationship and my heart would be broken. I told him right there that I am positive.
So he went and three months later he came back. We got tested. He’s still negative. He's negative up to today. Yeah. So, the biggest challenge is disclosure. And I know it is not easy to disclose because the disclosure comes with a lot of positive and negative effects.
But it is better you live a free life than you live a life of bondage.
The advice that I can give to a young woman who has tested HIV positive I can tell that person that there is hope, because I’ll see myself in that person.
And they can live a long life and get pregnant.
And life doesn't end with HIV.
I am 25 years old with this event, and still, thriving and taking care of my children, I am a wife. I go about my business just like any other person.
