"My Story" by Paul

Hello everyone. I feel very excited and happy to have the opportunity to share my story with you today. My name is Paul. I am 16 years old, and in 9th grade level of education at a government school. I want to tell you a little about my life and the help I have received from the CAM staff.
When I was a baby I lived together with my mother and father, but when I was just 2 years old my father became very unwell, and died. My mother and I were very sad, and we moved to live with my grandparents.
Just before my father died, he had begun to be sick often, and needed to stay in hospital. We knew then that he was HIV positive. My mother decided to have herself and me tested for the virus too, and we were both positive too. I was still very young, so my mother chose not to explain what this result meant, although from an early age I knew that I had something called HIV inside me because I had to visit the doctor at the hospital very often, and take special medicine since I was 4 years old. I heard the nurses and doctors at the hospital talk about HIV, and use my name at the same time. I understood that I too was HIV positive, just like my father, but my mother thought I was too young to understand. She told me when I was about 10 years old, although I had known for several years before this.
When I was 8 years old my mother also began to become sick, and I and my grandparents tried to help look after her. I did not go to school at the time when she was unwell because I helped look after her and there was no one to send me to school. Our home was very near the home of one of the staff members of CCT AIDS Ministry(CAM), and Phii Oom started to visit my mother when she was ill. She helped us all as a family, by encouraging us, helping my mother access medicines to help her, and just being our friend at a time when we needed love and support. After my mother started taking medicines too, her health started to improve, and she was able to look after herself again, I returned to school, and we live happily together as a family.
Through CAM I have had many opportunities to take part in activities that help me understand how to live with HIV better, and how to have a good quality of life. We also have many times, through CAM, to have special times together as a family, alongside other families who also are living with HIV. Last year, I joined in a special programme, with 20 other young people to learn ways to tell our story, through the written word, verbally and through a photographic album of our lives via scrapbooking. I feel this helps me to express myself better, and understand my feelings better, as well as help keep my good relationship with my mother. In the future I would like to stay healthy and strong, able to complete my studies, and be able to work well when I finish at school. I ask you here to pray for me and my family, pray that we will continue to live together well, and lead healthy lives.
To the CAM staff I want to say thank you for your help and support for both me, and for my mother, and especially thank you for providing me with the opportunity to travel out of Thailand for the first time ever, and to share my story here at this special meeting.

“My Story” by Jenny

“We cannot choose the circumstances of our birth but we can choose how we live out our lives”

My name is Jenny. I am 18 years old. My father died when I was a young girl, and my mother remarried and I and my little sister lived with my grandmother. We were both HIV positive as a result of my mother’s infection.

I got to know the staff of CAM since I was 5 years old, because they visited my neighbours, and then our family. My neighbor introduced us to CAM because they knew that my 3 year old sister was unwell, and then CAM realized my grandmother was caring for 2 small children who were HIV positive. My sister died when she was just 5 years old and I was 7 years old. CAM has continued to help us and visit us almost every month for over 10 years, and have helped us with many things, such as school costs ( such as fees, uniforms, food and books) and have always been a source of encouragement and advice for my grandmother and I. CAM staff are like family to me- Khun Nawanat and Khun Jaruwan have been like a mother for me throughout my life.They have helped put me in touch with hospitals and social services that are available to help people living with HIV/AIDS. Through this I have been able to attend camps and training sessions with other young people living with HIV, like me. I have a very good doctor, Dr Suparat, at the hospital who shows care and empathy for all of us- she is a very special lady.



I have now finished my school studies and will be going to university this year. I would first like to study to be a nurse. I want to be able to help and care for other people, especially my family members and my friends who are also HIV positive. I want to help them to be strong and healthy despite being HIV positive. If I am unable to be a nurse, I would like to be a senior school teacher so that I can help teach young people to be good citizens.

I would like to thank Dr Erlinda and the CCA AIDS Programme for sponsoring me and giving me the opportunity to share my story with you all. May God Bless you.
Thank you.

Channels of Hope HIV/AIDS workshop

Channels of Hope HIV/AIDS workshop was lead by World Vision along with the help of CAM. The workshop was a 3 day event with extensive material to cover. We started the proceedings with an opening ceremony of lighting a candle and reading scriptures that described being the salt and light of the earth. There were participants from several groups throughout Thailand. The workshop was held at the Dynasty Hotel in Bangkok.

We initially started out with drawing a picture of how we saw HIV/AIDS in our community and then we had to describe our picture and explain why we drew what we drew. This way we got to see different perspectives of how each other views HIV/AIDS in their own community. We all have different views, but we can all work together to achieve our goals.

We all participated in very interesting and thought provoking activities. Such as this activity in which we simulated the human body and how our immune system works and how foreign invaders like the common cold, TB, infections and HIV enters our bodies. Some of the participants had to direct the actors to play out the scene of HIV entering the body. This was a great way for the participants to really understand how our body defends itself and where are weaknesses make us vulnerable to infections.


We learned how HIV can be spread with this activity. We all had test tubes with clear liquid so everybody looked the same. We were instructed to pipet some liquid from our tube and put it in your partners tube and then we switched to different partners 3 different times. Once we all had the chance to exchange fluids with 4 different people, 2 people were called to the front to have their tubes tested for HIV. The instructor put a drop of chemical in the tubes and if the liquid started to turn pink that meant you were infected with HIV. Initially, only one person had the infection in their tube. The two volunteers to be tested first were then asked to point out the people that they exchanged fluids with and they were brought up front for testing. This was done again and again until we had everybody tested and from one infection it was spread to 15 out of the 32 participants.

This activity was designed to challenge us to think how we view activities that range from Healthy to Unhealthy and from Lawful to Unlawful. For instance we had to put people holding the placards in order from Healthy to Unhealthy. Ranging from masturbation within marriage to adultery and prostitution. We had to explain why we placed the people in their hierarchy and why. It was a great way of challenging viewpoints and learning from one another. Sometimes it takes a different perspective than your own to enhance the learning process.

One of the highlights of the activities was the condom on the cucumber. Everybody got a good laugh and we all learned some things in the process too. It is important to learn how to prevent HIV spread by using condoms. We need to get past our fears and embarrassment of activities like this and really learn the right way of protecting ourselves.

In this activity we had to list all the ways different groups of people are affected by HIV and how they are affected socially, spiritually, economically and politically. Then we had a representative from each group explain what they came up with.

At the closing ceremony we prayed for each other and tied prayer strings around each others wrists to remind us of how we are all working together to help our community.

We all took communion and lit candles from the single candle that was lit at the opening ceremony. We all stood around in a circle and held hands while a few people from each group responded about how grateful they were to participate in this workshop. Gifts were given out to key people responsible for putting the workshop together and a final prayer was said.

A group photo of all the participants. Now lets go out and be the salt and the light and not let these just be words, but put into action. Please pray for all the people participating in the workshop and the communities they serve.