Ebook: Courage and Hope : Stories from Teachers Living with HIV in Sub-Saharan Africa

Courage and Hope gives voice to the real life experiences of 12 HIV-positive teachers, five of whom are women, from Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania (both Mainland and Zanzibar) and Zambia. The teachers recount their experiences of discovering their HIV-positive status and how this has affected them in their families, their communities, and their professional lives. Their stories are documented by journalists, emphasizing the human dimension. The voices of these teachers suggest that a number of obstacles are commonly faced by teachers living with HIV. Paramount among them are stigma and discrimination, both within their families and communities as well as their workplaces and in society more generally. The difficulties of overcoming stigma and discrimination are further exacerbated by a failure to ensure confidentiality in the workplace.