Stop HIV by loving yourself

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines has one of the fastest growing HIV cases in the world. The country has 36 diagnoses every day as of the April 2019 report of the Department of Health. This is the situation that LoveYourself, a volunteer-driven non-profit organization, tries to illuminate among vulnerable populations, and affected communities by HIV in time for its eighth founding anniversary this July.

Through the years, we’ve come to know that one of the significant issues causing the spread of the virus is the lack of people’s regard for their self-worth, leading them to engage in different risky behaviors. One’s “self-worth” is a powerful determinant of one’s quality of life, especially in active pursuit of a healthy sexual lifestyle. This is particularly evident in vulnerable populations to HIV like men-having-sex-with-men

(MSM), transgender people, and the youth.

Moreover, the epidemic also quickly grew due to the lack of knowledge of HIV prevention, care, and support. The situation has worsened because of societal stigma, causing many individuals to hide and avoid seeking help.

Most of the Filipinos are still stuck on its highly traditional way of thinking when it comes to discussing issues on gender and sexual health. We often tend to shy away from talking about these pertinent issues on a regular face-to-face chikahan with our friends, colleagues, and families.

Now ask me what this simple act of disregard for sexual health issues impacts? This simply adds to the haywire of concerns pertaining to stigma and misinformation. It limits our knowledge and ability on how to empower people who may need sexual health services to protect themselves and enjoy their lives fully.

Thus, at the age of 24, I saw an opportunity as a nurse to use my platform to educate my Twitter followers on anything that pertains to sexual health management. I never thought that a simple informational message fitted on 140 characters could actually shed light to one’s weary heart.

This simple effort to impart knowledge to people made such a deep impact that Shorty Awards recognized it, and I humbly received the award of Twitter Nurse of the Year. Determined to live up to the distinction, I dared to do more, and together with five of my newfound friends, we have established LoveYourself with a mission to reach out to others to propagate ideas, attitudes, and practices that encourage loving oneself.

Being a newborn organization back in 2011, LoveYourself has endured several birth pains. We didn’t have a center then, but all we knew was that we wanted to help the community in whatever way we possibly can. We partnered with the government through the Research Institute of Tropical Medicine (RITM), which gave us space in Malate, Manila, to conduct HIV education, counseling, and testing.

From there we have been very fortunate enough to meet new partners, such as the Global Fund, AIDS Healthcare Foundation, Pilipinas Shell Foundation Inc. and Save the Children among others, and more new volunteers, who shared our vision and helped us grow to contribute more impactful projects and programs to the country.

In June 2014, we opened our first operated, and volunteer-driven community center in Mandaluyong City called the LoveYourself Anglo. From that humble beginning, we were able to establish five more community centers over the years, namely

LoveYourself Uni and Victoria by LoveYourself in Pasay City, LoveYourself Welcome in Manila, Lily by LoveYourself x DIOSSA in Paranaque City, and LoveYourself White House in Cebu City.

These community centers were built to provide safe spaces, where clients can empower themselves in taking care of themselves and feel worthy as individuals.

Catering mostly to the members of the LGBTQ+ community, our centers provide free

HIV-related services, such as peer education and prevention, testing and counseling, treatment, care, and support.

Specific centers also offer transgender health services and light-to-moderate mental health issues, which address the interrelated issues associated with HIV. Some of the centers also offer co-working spaces with a free latte, infotainment services, and social events. We do this to break the stigma and bring more people closer to the community to see that HIV is just a virus that we can all manage to stop.

Through our 1000-plus volunteers — doing both frontlines and back end,

LoveYourself was able to serve 50% of the total HIV cases in the National Capital Region and nearly 20% to all cases in the Philippines for 2019. To date, the group has offered free HIV testing to around 30,000 clients annually on its six community centers, and free HIV treatment to nearly 4,000 Filipinos living with HIV.

As the HIV epidemic continues to rise, LoveYourself is fueled by the power of its loving volunteers to do more and impact more. We are not stopping at our current achievements, but we are inspired to contribute more by providing innovative services, such as the Safe Spaces PH — an online-based application for condoms and lubricants distribution; the implementation of the Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis program — an HIV prevention method, and the launching of “Undetectable Equals

Untransmittable (U=U) campaign with our global ambassadors — Miss Universe titleholders Pia Wurtzbach (2015) and Catriona Gray (2018) promoting that HIV treatment works. In addition, the self-screening program is underway to empower people to know their HIV status even in the confines of their home or private spaces.

Building our own community is not enough; we committed ourselves to help 14 other community-based organizations to emulate what we are doing through the facilitation of Global Fund. Believing that ending this epidemic is a collaborative effort, we are bringing together community supporters to the Love Gala event to celebrate and recognize individuals and groups that have made great contributions to the development of HIV advocacy in the Philippines.

We are grateful for those who are with us on this journey, enabling us to create a bigger voice for the community. We hope that this move could help us see our self- worth, and be empowered to create ripples of positive change in the community and to realize that loving yourself is an effective way to fight the stigma and eventually, stop HIV. — Ronivin Pagtakhan, R.N.