Avaliando o presente e projetando o futuro: Rede Nacional de Adolescentes e Jovens Vivendo com HIV/Aids (RNAJVHA) RJ; histórias de vida

Abstract

This study seeks to understand the impact of issues related to HIV/Aids on the lives of teenagers and young people who are activists in the National Network of Teenagers and Young People Living with HIV/Aids (RNAJVHA) and the State Network of Teenagers and Young People Living with HIV/Aids of Rio de Janeiro (REAJVHA-RJ). These activists are all between 18 and 24 years of age and HIV positive, regardless of form of transmission. They are part of the construction of the social activism in the third phase of the epidemic, when universal and free access to treatment and antiretroviral medication through the Brazilian National Health System (SUS) is assured. Using life history narratives, I seek to understand feelings, motivations, processes of identity composition and recomposition, health risks management, manners of relating to social networks, the integration of individual history in the wider social movement's collective history and the search to broaden the opportunities for understanding of and reflection on the impact of the HIV/Aids epidemic on these young activists. I also seek to reconstruct their historical, individual life experiences, identify the moments before and after they became activists and the moments of coping with the facts of life as people who are HIVpositive. These conditions and achievements have guided and influenced their life courses, focusing the dynamic processes of changes, orphanhood, negotiations, dealing with prejudice, sexuality, solidarity with others, reformulations, articulations and adherence to treatment. I analyze the movements present in the social lives and existences of teenagers and young people as bearers of rights and duties who act out their role of actors/authors of their own lives through activism in HIV/Aids. This research describes the reinvention of a new HIV/Aids activism.