My name is Fabian Wirnsperger and I?m studying social work at the University of Applied Sciences in Vienna. This year I did an internship at PIUMA and I was working with the members of this support group for 5 months.

The things I?ve seen prove that the general ideas of helpless Africans are wrong! In the matter of HIV there is an incredible and very fast development!

I?ve gotten to know people who had never heard about HIV three years ago, but now they know more about it than many people in my own country. And since the patients get the medicine they feel very strong and they can do hard jobs again.

Also, I got to know a married couple who decided to have another baby, even after both of them were tested positive. This boy is now more than six months old and he is doing very well. After seeing that, I?ve realised that these people have a chance and a future!

And they?ll know how to use this chance as long as they?re not defrauded by governments, companies, churches, NGO?s and ill-conceived development policies.

Don?t constrain them and they?ll succeed!

October 9, 2006