KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA: Kirenjit Kaur, 35, is the poster child of people living with HIV/AIDS.
She was one of the first persons and one of the few with the condition to go public about it.
Her emotional and mental strength is considered amazing by many but Kiren (as she is called) feels that, despite her condition, "it is not the end of the road".
In fact, she feels it is her purpose to put a face to HIV/AIDS.
"I am here to help the 'positive' community and empower them and tell them they are not alone."
She is happy, healthy and passionate about her work with HIV/AIDS, especially with the MyPlus network.
She takes her medication every day to enable her to live a normal life.
As gung-ho as she is about empowering those living with HIV/ AIDS, she is just as emphatic about the prevention of HIV/AIDS.
She said there were many people who were under the impression that it would not happen to them. "It only takes one time. Look at me."
She contracted HIV in 1996 through her husband, a former drug addict who has since died.
In 2005, when Perak mufti Da-tuk Seri Harussani Zakaria suggested HIV/AIDS carriers should be cast away on an island to make sure that they did not infect others, Kiren and four "positive" people had a news conference and imparted information about the disease.
"We are human beings. We hold jobs and we are productive," said Kiren, who holds a full-time job with the Asia Pacific Council of AIDS Services.
"HIV/AIDS is not about people who go to prostitutes or drug addicts. It's also about housewives and children. It is in households.
"People say I'm a victim because I contracted it from my husband. But to a prostitute they say: 'Oh, she deserves it'."
"It's not about blame any more."
She said she had been one of the luckier ones in the "positive community" in terms of discrimination.
She not only has the support of her friends and family but also of Sikhs she mixes with.
"When I told them of my condition, they were fully supportive and are there for me."
But she said people who did not have HIV/AIDS who were non-discriminative were usually those who were "linked" with the disease, such as volunteers or workers of HIV/AIDS non-governmental agencies, health personnel or those who had family members or friends with the condition.
Initially, when she contracted the disease, she did know much about it and she "blamed the whole world".
Later, she did volunteer work for HIV/AIDS NGOs, attended forums and workshops and her turning point came when she attended an international AIDS conference in Bangkok in 2004 which had 20,000 participants.
"Twenty thousand people -- doctors, scientists, volunteers, NGOs and media representatives -- were there to discuss one topic: HIV/AIDS. It opened up my mind."
It was only then that she forgave her husband, who by then had been dead for eight years.
