In this video episode of Let Women Talk, HIV community advocate Sarah Feagan speaks with Kirsty Machon — Executive Officer of Positive Women Victoria, at the 2019 Australasian HIV&AIDS Conference held in Perth on 17-19 September.
About Positive Women Victoria
Positive Women Victoria (PWV) is the only community based organisation specifically funded to support women living with HIV in Australia and was established by and for women living with HIV. PWV provides support, information and advocacy for women in Victoria living with HIV. For over thirty years PWV has responded to the changing needs of women living with HIV, recognising the impact gender has on the way women experience HIV and addressing the specific needs and emerging issues that affect women living with HIV in Victoria.
Find out about Let Women Talk
Let Women Talk is a NAPWHA community-led health literacy initiative where HIV community advocates incorporate their rich perspectives and diverse lived HIV experiences back into strengthening community health responses — where women design and develop the health content and interventions that they want to see and hear. The initiative is one of many activities forming part of the HIV Health Literacy Framework Project, a NAPWHA project supported through the funding of ViiV Healthcare Australia.
Hear other video episodes
In this series, Sarah Feagan reports back from the 2019 Australasian HIV&AIDS Conference aiming to translate research back into community practice.
- Let Women Talk — Episode 01 — Sarah Feagan & Deborah Bateson
- Let Women Talk — Episode 02 — Sarah Feagan & Mina John
- Let Women Talk — Episode 03 — Sarah Feagan & Janet Gare
- Let Women Talk — Episode 04 — Sarah Feagan & Jenny Hoy
- Let Women Talk — Episode 05 — Sarah Feagan & Diane Lloyd
- Let Women Talk — Episode 08 — Sarah Feagan & Carole Khaw
- Let Women Talk — Episode 09 — Sarah Feagan & Rebecca Houghton
- Let Women Talk — Episode 10 — Sarah Feagan & Melinda Hassall
- Let Women Talk — Episode 11 — Sarah Feagan & Shoshana Rosenberg
- Let Women Talk — Episode 12 — Sarah Feagan & Liz Duck-Chong
- Let Women Talk — Episode 13 — Sarah Feagan & Moira Wilson
- Let Women Talk — Episode 14 — Sarah Feagan & Allie Carter
Who’s in this interview?
Kirsty Machon has been involved with HIV-related journalism, advocacy and policy development for over 20 years, after first becoming involved in the HIV area as an activist and writer in the early 1990s. She has worked for organisations including AFAO and NAPWHA, representing NAPWHA extensively in her role as HIV Health and Treatments Policy Analyst, with organisations including the National Centre in HIV Epidemiology and Clinical Research (now The Kirby Institute, UNSW), the International Network for Strategic Initiatives in Global HIV Trials (INSIGHT), and on the Consumers Health Forum governance committee. She is also a former editor of Positive Living and the National AIDS Bulletin. Kirsty’s principal interests at NAPWHA included the ethics of clinical research, facilitating treatments access, and advocating for the reproductive rights of women and men living with HIV. She has contributed to a professional monograph on the human rights and policy dimensions of this topic.
Sarah Feagan is a queer women who has been living with HIV since 2008. She is the previous chair of Positive Women Victoria and has recently joined the team at Living Positive Victoria as a Peer Navigator. She also the Vice President of NAPWHA. Sarah is a co-facilitator of Phoenix for Women and the Positive Leadership Development Institute (PLDi). Sarah has unique approach to her advocacy and is inspired by the lived experience of the body positive to inform her practice. Sarah’s advocacy spans the from the grass roots all the way up to high level governance. She has a global outlook with a local focus to bringing the community along with her.
