It is also important to think about how to get people to access the services that are needed for HIV prevention. The first step in the journey is for someone to know about their HIV status and the only way to know that is by going for an HIV test. She says that there are specific actions that are very important for us to take if we are to end the AIDS epidemic. We take all those emotions combined including the anger and take action," Katana says. However, people living with HIV play a very significant role. All of us should join hands, as the theme goes, to scale up HIV prevention. AIDS is not a responsibility of people living with HIV. "Today we are here to think about how we can take action and end AIDS together. It is a day to remember those who would have been here with us but unfortunately because of HIV are not anymore. Milly Katana, an HIV activist and a survivor of AIDS, says this is a very important day for people living with HIV, a day for everybody to step back and remember what HIV means to our lives, our families and society. This year's theme is "Joining Hands to scale up HIV Prevention." Since then, Uganda has commemorated the international candlelight memorial as a precursor to World AIDS Day, every year. During that inaugural memorial, The AIDS Support Organization (TASO), working with the government of Uganda played a key role and mobilized their support groups which mainly comprised of people infected and those affected by AIDS at that time. The first International Candlelight Memorial was observed in Uganda in 1988. It serves as an important intervention for global solidarity, breaking down barriers of stigma and discrimination, and giving hope to new generations. The day serves as a community mobilization campaign to raise social consciousness about the epidemic. Last week, Uganda joined other communities all over the world to simultaneously observe the International AIDS Candlelight Memorial event, also locally known as the Bonfire. She has moved from frightened victim of HIV/AIDS to activist, to HIV dissident and finally to spokesperson for new views about the epidemic. She is a self-taught counsellor and a peer educator. Today she is a young girl living positively with HIV. Photo by Elvis Basuddeīut after being empowered during those candlelight sessions, she never remained the same. Sharifa Nalugo narrates how she was empowered by the Candle Memorial day. Naturally, I was terrified by the news that I had the HIV virus," says Nalugo. "After those lectures, I picked courage and tested for HIV and, indeed, confirmed that what had been disturbing me was HIV/AIDS and not witchcraft as I had all along believed. They preached compassion, dignity, courage, awareness of risk, the need for unity between people living with HIV/AIDS, and the promise of love," she said. "There I found people who changed my perception with advocacy lectures on HIV and AIDS. She recalls in 2015 when a peer who suspected she could be having HIV/AIDS (she had manifested some AIDS signs) took her to Nakivubo Stadium where the International AIDS Candlelight Memorial (IACM) was being held. Life is going on so well for the 23-year-old Nalugo that she can now afford to reminisce about her ordeal with nostalgia. All she wished for was to die, thinking it was only death that could take away the pain. The pain intensified and she could not bear it. Unfortunately, Nalugo believed so and didn't take the trouble to seek medical attention. She was a beautiful adolescent and a rumour went around in the suburbs of Kawempe-Bwaise, where she was staying, that girls who were envious of her beauty were bewitching her. In 2014, she fell critically sick and nearly died after spending two days in comma. For two miserable years, Sharifah Nalugo painfully struggled with what she called a mysterious disease.
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