All have been linked to Antiretroviral Therapy that helps the virus attack to slow down. All are successfully accessing the treatment except for two.

What is the big deal?

People living with HIV can suffer from massive isolation from the society, let alone the deep trauma one succumbs to, once the news is unleashed on to him or her.

“Had I not been involved in the field and had I not educated myself about HIV/AIDS, I wouldn’t have dared to shave a positive man” confessed Raghavbhai from Ahmadabad district.

Raghavbhai owns a salon and is part of the link workers scheme implemented by Caritas India in Gujarat state. Gujarat State Aids Control Society (GSACS) have awarded Raghavbhai the best Link Worker consecutively in 2011, 2012 and 2013.

Link workers are those that connect between the project and high risk groups (HRG) like Female sex workers (FSW), Men having sex with men (MSM) and bridge population like the migrant workers, the truck drivers and a number of other vulnerable people like housewives and youth groups.

Between the period of 2010-2016, Caritas India has reached out to 2.

5 million such vulnerable people in the effort to curb the tricky virus.

Between the same period, the project has contacted over 53 thousand HRGs, referring them to government installed Integrated Counseling and Testing Centers (ICTC), Primary Health Centers (PHC)

“We have an exemplary rapport established between us and these centers, which why we have been able to reach to an extensive vulnerable and HRGs” says Nirmal Minj, Gujarat State officer of Caritas India.

“Services like ICTC, ART and STI were not sufficiently reaching out to the villages”, Joint Director for Targeted Intervention in GSACS, Mr. Kamlesh Meswania told in an interview to Caritas India. He said that the services were delivered through Caritas India.

Caritas India has been implementing LWS in the state of Gujarat since December 2009 to August 2016 in a total of 12 districts.

On World Aids day today, Caritas India pays respect to its 2.2 thousand Link Workers and tens of thousands of community volunteers who formed one big Caritas family in this mission.