For World Mental Health Day the Beyond LIVING partnership, a global advocacy platform between GNP+, ICW, and Y+ Global, worked with our Life Force to highlight the impacts of mental health on people living with HIV around the world. Through this video we want to stress the importance of universal mental health access for all and its importance especially for our community.

"Through our campaign #GenderMatters we want to highlight how gender inequality and patriarchy underscores our health outcomes and intensifies the diverse issues women living with HIV experience in relation to our other intersecting identities." 

Supporting mental health and emotional well-being is one of the most overlooked aspects of treatment, care and support within the HIV response. HIV diagnosis can cause trauma, anxiety and depression, or exacerbate existing anxiety and mood swings and mental health disorders. Anxiety and self-stigma around job and housing security, self-esteem, status disclosure and building healthy romantic relationships, including fear and anxiety due to HIV criminalization, can affect the mental health, self-esteem and emotional well-being of people living with HIV. Even within HIV activism and the workplace, we replicate traumas and social inequalities perpetuating cycles of oppression, trauma and stress on those within our community. In this session, women living with HIV will share their lives work through research and advocacy in the realms of mental health and resilience in the context of gender -based violence, HIV criminalization, health care violations, sex worker, poverty and inter-movement aggression. Lillian Mworeko, Uganda, Mental Health and SRHR Olena Stryzhak, Ukraine, Gender Based Violence + HIV Sara Thara Maga, Nepal, Young Women and Mental Health Vanessa Johnson, USA, Macro and Micro Aggression and Movement Trauma - Lateral Violence Chair: Morolake Odetoyinbo, Nigeria/US

HIV diagnosis, opportunistic infections and drug side effects can affect mental health, emotional wellness, or exacerbate existing mood disorders. People living with HIV often develop anxiety around jobs, housing, food security, sexual orientation, personal safety, self-esteem, disclosure, building healthy romantic relationships and HIV criminalization. Women face the added stress of asserting their rights to prevent or terminate unintended pregnancies, conceive, birth, nurture and parent their children without excessive interference and societal scrutiny. Women living with HIV will share their strategies for finding balance and resolving the trauma of violence, HIV acquisition, diagnosis, seeking therapy and medications for their mental health. This interactive session will examine the perspectives of women and girls living with HIV an affected by AIDS. It will offer suggestions for developing integrated HIV programs that address the mental health needs of women and girls across their life span. Featuring: Morolake Odetoyinbo, Nigeria Mel Rattue, United Kingdom

ICW's Young Women’s Media Team launched their campaign #GenderMatters and shared their experiences about why talking about intersectional gender issues is so important in the HIV response. Featuring: Loyiso Lindani, South Africa – Narcissism + Toxicity + HIV Sara Maga Thapa, Nepal – Mental Health Keren Dunaway, Argentina – Sexual and Reproductive Justice Sharifah Kyomuka, Uganda – Treatment Adherence and Access