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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, December 01, 2003

Chinese HIV carriers fight social stigma

Li Xiang, a 27-year-old man, looks like an ordinary middle-class Chinese citizen. But he has tested positive for HIV, and works as director of the Mangrove Support Group Project, China's first self-support project for people living with HIV/AIDS.


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Li Xiang, a 27-year-old man, looks like an ordinary middle-class Chinese citizen.

But he has tested positive for HIV, and works as director of the Mangrove Support Group Project, China's first self-support project for people living with HIV/AIDS.

"Yes, I am an HIV carrier," Li said simply.

Infected with AIDS in a blood transfusion in high school, Li said he was almost totally defeated when the truth came out in his junior year in college.

"I was dreaming of becoming a writer then, but suddenly everything in my life became impossible and all I wanted was to run away," he said.

"Hiding" at home for about half a year, Li came to Beijing for medical treatment in 1998. Since then, his life has improved no end.

"During that period I had the opportunity to get to know some non-government organizations that worked with AIDS and attended training for volunteers. I was even sent abroad for training by the Ford Foundation."

Li said the more he knew about AIDS, the more he wanted to do. China has over 800,000 people infected by the AIDS virus and most are from poor areas.

In 2002, with help from the social sector, Li Xiang finally initiated the Mangrove Support Group Project, aiming to provide care and support for people living with HIV/AIDS.

"The mangrove plant is full of vitality with the natural ability to both survive and flourish under harsh conditions," Li said. "Although they are different from each other, they unite together to fight off the waves and protect the smaller mangrove plants."

"Under the shelter of the mangrove, we will learn how to be strong, how to help each other and how we can find a fairer and better life for ourselves and others living with HIV/AIDS," he said.

Established less than two years, Mangrove members had been to many places, mainly poor or remote areas.

Li said he once answered 27 questions on AIDS from one person without a break in a counseling activity at a small town in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. "Their ignorance about AIDS hurts me," he said.

"I don't expect our work can make a huge difference, but I believe that what we have done will at least help some HIV carriers improve their quality of life," he said.

In addition to extending self-support projects to areas of need,Li said Mangrove also sought to financially support part of the testing and treatment fees of people living with HIV/AIDS.

To improve communication between HIV carriers, Mangrove published a free magazine, opened a hot line and plans to launch its own website. "I even made my personal phone number public so that I could be reached anytime I was needed," Li said.

Li said most of their funding was from foreign aid and he was currently troubled with his English ability.

"I really need to improve my English so that I can have better cooperation with foreign enterprises or non-governmental organizations," he said

With so much work at hand, Li said he thought his colleagues and he were the same as any ordinary people. "We are busy with ourjobs and our lives," he said.

"HIV carrier is not our personal identity, " he said. "We are happy because we can be helpful to others and we are not idling away our time."

On the desktop of Li's laptop were some pictures of rural houses and children with timid expressions. Li said the pictures were taken at a village in Henan Province, one of the areas most hard hit by AIDS.

"They are AIDS orphans," Li said, referring to the children.

To encourage the children to speak and communicate with each other, Li asked them what was the most important quality to a person and prepared a small gift for the best answer.

In the end, the gift went to a little girl, whose answer was "to care about others", said Li.


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