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Open Secret

People facing up to HIV and AIDS in Uganda

124 pages; published 2000; ISBN 1 872502 55 5

Uganda has achieved greater openness about HIV/AIDS - and towards people living with HIV - than most other countries. This has contributed to a steady decline in HIV prevalence in Uganda since the mid-1990s.

Memory books prepare children for the future

The National Community of Women Living with HIV/AIDS in Uganda (NACWOLA): the memory book helps parents living with HIV to prepare their children for the future.

Taking an open approach to HIV/AIDS is not always easy, either for civil society organisations, government agencies or individuals. Often it requires considerable personal courage. Yet the potential rewards of openness are enormous.

This book describes how, in Uganda, openness about HIV and AIDS has been translated into action at the level of the individual, the family, the community and the nation. It explains how civil society organisations, political leaders, government agencies, public figures and ordinary people have breached the wall of silence which once surrounded the HIV epidemic, reduced HIV-related stigma and denial, and so made HIV/AIDS an "open secret".

Much still remains to be done in Uganda to cope with the impact of HIV, and to dispel complacency about the country's success in reducing HIV prevalence. What Uganda has achieved so far, however, gives cause for hope to other countries struggling to cope with the unprecedented challenges presented by the HIV epidemic.

A video is available on this subject, also entitled Open Secret.

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Sample chapter
You can view a chapter of this book as an Adobe pdf file. The chapter looks at a Christian and an Islamic response to the HIV epidemic in Uganda and features the Rev Gideon Byamugisha who is an international figure in the fight against HIV/AIDS.
To view the chapter, click here.

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