Working with stigma of Aids

Vivienne Javins

When Vivienne Javins, started working as an accounts clerk for the New Zealand Aids Foundation, aged 23, she had to clarify a few things. Like, um, how do men have sex?

Mrs Javins, 16 years on the 20-year-old foundation's linchpin administration and support services manager, roars with laughter at the memory.

The new job was "a very steep learning curve on male sex, whether you wanted to or not. I no longer blush - nothing fazes me now." Not even the erect penis posters that have appeared in the office as the foundation works on a campaign to re-eroticise the condom.

But this month Mrs Javins steps down from a job, says foundation chief executive Rachael Le Mesurier, she has embraced beyond the call of duty.

At 39, Mrs Javins is unexpectedly pregnant - "it's all good" - and with husband Mark, 42, and son Grayson, 8, has realised a dream to buy a motel in the Bay of Islands.

Mrs Javins might never have applied to the foundation had she not worked out in her late teens that an uncle's long-time "flatmate" was something more, bringing with it insight into gay issues - and into stigma.

Mrs Javins recalls, kindly, that her parents for years told people she worked "in an office in Auckland - it took quite a number of years for them to say Aids Foundation".

Some would assume she had HIV, or ask what a straight woman was doing working with gays. The meter readers used to turn up wearing gloves.

But "the passion of the people" drove her. "You want to make a difference. It's also a wonderful family here."

In the early days she would sometimes have to ring the bank to beg it to temporarily cover wages; these days, an increasingly professional foundation, which has 40 staff, gets 98 per cent of its income from Government contracts.

Answering the reception phone from time to time, Mrs Javins hears the anguish of people who believe they are at risk: "People rattle off to you because finally they have someone to talk to." She refers them to counsellors.

However, she was taken aback the day a 70-something woman who had just contracted HIV from her partner, a secret bisexual, rang up and snapped: "what are you gonna do about it?"

Mrs Javins says she will somehow continue doing her bit for HIV/Aids support and prevention in her new life: "There is still a lot to be achieved." 


HIV/Aids in NZ

* The Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) is spread by infected blood, semen, vaginal fluids and breast milk and causes a deficiency in the immune system. Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (Aids) is the result of a compromised immune system, and a person has the condition when one or more of a list of 25 HIV-related illnesses are present. There is no cure.

* In the last five years, the rate of heterosexual diagnoses of HIV has roughly equalled that of gay men.

* There are about 1600 people who know they are living with HIV in New Zealand; another 2400 possibly don't.

* There is no risk of catching HIV from kissing, shaking hands, using public toilets, telephones, being bitten by an insect, or working alongside someone with the virus.

* New drug therapies mean that most people with HIV/Aids are living longer, healthier lives.

Source: New Zealand Aids Foundation