KEY POINTS:
Name: Jane Bruning
Age: 50
Role: National co-ordinator for Positive Women
Hours: 50+
Employer: Positive Women Inc
Pay scale: $55,000
Describe your job
Between 400 and 450 women are living with HIV in New Zealand. Nearly 100 of these are members of Positive Women.
As national co-ordinator, my role involves fundraising, setting budgets, accounts, administration, networking with and assisting members, campaigns and events, marketing, media, training - you name it, I do it.
The organisation receives no government funding and relies on grants from organisations such as Lottery Grants, ASB Community Trust, J . McKenzie, as well as donations from drug companies who manufacture HIV drugs; but our largest funder is the MAC Aids Fund through the sales of their Viva Glam lipsticks.
The main focus of Positive Women is to provide support for women and families in New Zealand living with HIV or Aids. Support is offered through an 0800 phone number, a bi-monthly newsletter and an annual women's retreat so members can meet other women living with HIV, attend workshops on medications and care and have time out.
Positive Women is also involved in various advocacy roles.
Why did you choose the job?
I wanted to work in a role which supported women and families living with HIV, to help raise public awareness around HIV and to work alongside other women in the fight against the stigma and discrimination levelled at people living with HIV.
I am an advocate of peer support organisations, firstly from personal experience by how much it changed my life by belonging to such an organisation and, secondly, from seeing the difference an organisation such as this has made to the lives of women and families living with HIV or Aids.
What is your background?
I did not undergo any specialist training before starting this role but believe everything I have done in my life has been in preparation for this job.
I travelled for several years and worked in numerous countries as a crew member for a tour. I worked as the general manager of a team of 40 people in Tanzania and worked as a tutor teaching for a private Travel and Tourism College in New Zealand.
I am a mother and I am a woman who has been HIV-positive for more than 20 years. I have completed a graduate diploma in not-for-profit management through Unitec and am in my second year of doing a masters degree in social practice with a focus on community development.
Why is the job important?
So many people in New Zealand living with HIV live in social isolation. The services offered by Positive Women help enormously to reduce that isolation. It is important to reduce the stigma which surrounds HIV so that people living with HIV are treated with respect and dignity, as human beings, and for the public to realise that HIV can affect anyone.
What's the best part of the job?
The first time I meet some women they are afraid and depressed. Some are angry, have low self-esteem, then I meet these same women a year later and they are transformed. When a woman gets married and when a woman has a child, after she thought that these things would never happen for her ... these are the things that make this job one of the most rewarding I have had.
Any down sides?
The politics of working in this field can be frustrating. Sometimes you can't reach people and, occasionally, there are misunderstandings which result in women withdrawing from the organisation,.
This makes me sad as there is little other support for them.
What are your strengths?
I care about, like and get on well with people. I am a good listener and approachable. I loathe injustice, discrimination and ill treatment of human/animal kind.
What changes in treatment of HIV/Aids have you seen?
When I was first diagnosed, there were no medications where I lived and my life expectancy was only three years.
HIV drugs have continued to improve. These drugs have meant that life expectancy for someone diagnosed with HIV can be anywhere from 20 to 40-plus years.
The downside to this is that people may begin to think that contracting HIV is not so bad.
New Zealand may be a low prevalence country for HIV, but there are more people being diagnosed on a yearly basis now than there were in the 1980s in the heyday of Aids.
If you are single and having unprotected sex, you are at risk.
If you are married and having unprotected extramarital sex, you are at risk for yourself and your partner.
Advice to someone wanting to work in a similar role?
Working in a role such as this is more about an attitude than about skills and qualifications. They help but this job is about people, about having empathy and understanding and being non-judgmental.
* POSITIVE WOMEN
Web: http://www.positivewomen.co.nz
Phone: 0800 POZTIV (769 848)
