I’m Angelina. I’m originally from Kenya. I came to the UK as a young woman to join my late mother, who was working here as a social worker, and to study at the University of Manchester. In my final year, I fell ill. It turned out to be hepatitis B. I finished my exams, came back to London, and the family GP looked at my notes and said, “I suggest you have an HIV test.”

This was the early 90s, the pre-HIV treatment era. There was a lot of fear in relation to HIV, everywhere, no hope in the newspapers. In fact, one of my earliest and lasting memories of the time was seeing Freddie Mercury’s image on the front page of a newspaper after his death.

The GP gave me a small piece of paper to go to the hospital for a blood test. I took it home, slid it under my bed, and didn’t go. I couldn’t. I visited the local library and researched hepatitis B. I couldn’t even bring myself to look up HIV. It was too terrifying.

Weeks later, because no results had come back, the GP wrote to me again. He underlined the word “strongly” in “I strongly suggest you go for an HIV test.” I went and got tested. And then I didn’t go back for the results. He called and called. I still didn’t go. I was too scared. For six months, I lived in that limbo, haunted by headlines, avoiding the truth.

Eventually, I found my way to a local counselling centre, when pre-test counselling was still the standard. I tested again. This time I went back. This time I heard the words.

At the same time, my brother, who was also in the UK studying, became very ill. He, too, was diagnosed with HIV. There were no treatments then. He spent his final year between the Ward in Goodge Street, the Lighthouse, and the Mildmay Hospice, where he died from HIV related PCP pneumonia. I watched his trajectory. I thought it was mine.

What kept me going were three things.

First: work. I’d just graduated and had been offered a job as an information officer in one of the Department of Health’s libraries. I remember thinking, “I’m dying. What do I do?” And the only answer that made sense was, “Take the job. Keep busy while I’m waiting to die.” I wasn’t going to sit in my room staring at four walls. With hindsight, it was one of the best decisions I ever made. Work gave me purpose. And it still does.

Second: a friend. One day, she said, “I have something to tell you. I have HIV.” And instead of fear, I felt a sense of relief. Not because she had HIV, but because I realised I wasn’t the only woman in London living with it. I told her my status immediately. She took me to a support group for women. There weren’t many of us then, but we held each other. She also took me to Body Positive in Earl’s Court, which was primarily white gay men at the time. They opened their arms to us. They showed us how to survive. If it weren’t for those women and those men, I don’t know where I’d be today.

Third: purpose. I changed direction and applied for a job at Positively Women. I became a caseworker. And that was the beginning of the next thirty-plus years of my life in HIV advocacy, support, and leadership. I’ve never left.

People often ask me about stigma. My attitude is simple: I will not allow stigma into my life. I told my family. My friends know. I work in HIV. I speak openly now. Not always, as it took years for me to gain the confidence to be open; I had to grow into this voice, but now I refuse to let stigma define me. Stigma kills communities. Stigma stops people from testing. Stigma isolates. Stigma harms. But I ask myself, and the women I support: “Does this person pay your rent? Feed you? Your child? Do they contribute anything meaningful to your life?” If not, then you don’t need them. If they don’t like it, they can walk away.

But I also know many women can’t walk away. Many women and men are emotionally and economically dependent on their significant others. There is also fear and a need to survive and be safe. These take priority over being open and sometimes tackling stigma. Dealing with stigma requires knowledge, support, a sense of community, and confidence. And that’s why my work continues.

I’m a co-author and co-editor alongside four incredible African women (Charity Nyirenda, Memory Sachikonye, Rebecca Mbewe and Winne Sseruma) of the book, Our Stories Told By Us: Celebrating the African Contribution to the UK HIV Response. We wrote the book because African people are so often portrayed negatively, as victims, statistics, and recipients of services. We wanted to change that narrative, not only to highlight our contribution to the HIV response, but also to tell our stories in our own words. To show that we have always been here. We have led, built, created, fought, and transformed. We gathered forty-one stories to coincide with and honour the 40th anniversary of HIV’s discovery in the UK. Each story has a photo. A face. A presence. Because representation matters. Voice matters. Truth matters.

Since its publication in 2023, our book has travelled across the UK, to Scotland, and to Geneva with UNAIDS. Huge thanks for the support we received from Gilead Sciences, Terrence Higgins Trust, Positive East and Fast Track Cities London for enabling our dream to become a reality. People ask, “Will you write a second book?” And we answer, “No. You will write your own story.” That’s why, with support from Lesbian and Gay Support the Migrants, we developed creative-writing workshops and a guided creative writing journal to help African communities begin writing and shaping their own narratives.

I’m also creative in other ways. I enjoy sewing, a skill I learned in school in Kenya. I make U=U T-shirts by hand, using colourful, vibrant African fabrics. U=U: undetectable equals untransmittable. If you take your HIV medication as prescribed and achieve and maintain an undetectable viral load, you cannot pass HIV to a sexual partner. The same applies in pregnancy: women living with HIV cannot pass it to their unborn babies when on treatment during pregnancy. It’s powerful. It’s liberating. And yet so many still don’t know. A T-shirt becomes a conversation starter. You look good. Someone asks. You explain. I make them to order, and donations go directly to the 4M Network of Mentor Mothers Living with HIV.

Peer support remains the heart of everything I do. I’m a founding member of the 4M Network, a perinatal mentoring project that supports women through pregnancy and beyond, offering training, information, and sisterhood. 4M began as From Pregnancy to Baby and Beyond at Positively Women, moved through Positive UK and Salamander Trust, and became independent in 2019. We continue to support women every single day.

The five of us behind the book, Charity Nyirenda, Memory Sachikonye, Rebecca Mbewe, Winnie Sseruma, and I, are ZZUK Africa United. Women from African countries of Zambia, Zimbabwe, Uganda and Kenya, now living in the UK, who met decades ago in those early support groups. We’re still here. Still standing together.

There was also the Gilead campaign, the one where I wore the red dress centring women in the HIV response. That’s what I believe in: women at the centre, stories told by us, support wrapped around us, knowledge in our hands, power in our voices.

I chose work. I chose community. I chose truth. I decided not to let stigma into my life. And I’m still here.

People sometimes say I shift rooms just by walking into them. Maybe. But what I really am is a woman who turned fear into fire. A mentor. An activist. A mother. A storyteller. A builder of sisterhoods. And I will continue, for as long as I have breath, to make sure no woman walks this journey alone.