Poz Action

People living with HIV gather together in many forms such as alliances, collaborations and networks. We acknowledge that our uniqueness is our lived experiences, the voice and action of people living with HIV and that this must remain vital and central to an effective response to HIV locally and globally. Our organisations include all the ways we respond to HIV.

People living with HIV organisations are committed to the notion of the greater involvement and meaningful engagement of people living with HIV (GIPA) in the health, social and structural responses to HIV, including government, clinical research and civil society responses. People living with HIV organisations aim to represent and advocate on behalf of the diversity of people living with HIV. They are founded in a commitment to the involvement and empowerment of the group most affected by HIV — people living with the virus. The organisations draw on the experience of the consumer health movement, community-based health promotion, and community development and they embody and promote the peer legitimacy of peer led approaches to health.

People living with HIV organisations are informed by the lives of people living with HIV and actively seek the engagement of the diversity of people living with HIV to ensure that their organisational voice is credible, relevant and timely.

People living with HIV organisations aim to ensure that the voices of people living with HIV are heard as a partner in all research, policy and program responses to HIV and further promote the leadership of people living with HIV as full, equal and essential partners to guide this work. These organisations strive to build the capacity of people living with HIV to participate in all aspects of society as informed, enabled and empowered participants in their own right and for their community’s development and social change.

People living with HIV organisations represent and acknowledge the diverse and evolving experiences of living with HIV. This ‘lived experience’ identity and its authority are essential to the ongoing production of quality and effective prevention, treatment and care responses to HIV. It is the quality of these responses that continues to allow people with HIV to live in dignity, maintain and improve their health, and make choices that have beneficial impacts for themselves, their partners, families and communities.

People living with HIV organisations seek to be responsive to the evolving challenges and strengths of people living with HIV and advocate on behalf of people living with HIV at an individual, a community and a systemic level.

These are the issues that POZ Action is currently targeting:

• The law and HIV
• Medicare Ineligibles
• Stigma and discrimination
• Antiretroviral co-payments for people with HIV in Australia [PDF]
• The vital role of people with HIV in HIV prevention [PDF]
• HIV transmission, the law, and public health [PDF]