Against the Odds is a series of frank conversations with guests whose lives have been touched in many different ways by HIV. We find out about the challenges they’ve faced, and what inspires them to strive for what may seem impossible goals. At UNAIDS, we guide and bring together the global effort to end AIDS. What we’ve learnt in the HIV response is that progress is never given, it is won. It depends on the power of people challenging the people in power.
Our guest today is David Gere, who calls himself an ‘Artivist.’ He is that rare being, a creative artist and writer, academic and activist, who crosses traditional boundaries with ease. David remembers the experience of seeing close friends affected and dying of AIDS in 1980s San Francisco, and his growing conviction that it might be possible to use art to change behaviours and attitudes, ‘I really thought of art as being about expression, getting things out, having a full life …...
14 Sept 2022
Swati Bhattacharya - the Ad Queen Changing Hearts and Minds
Our guest this week is Swati Bhattacharya, the first woman to become the Chief Creative Officer of a major advertising company in India. She has fought throughout her career against advertising stereotypes, particularly around the traditional roles of women in India, whether as mothers, daughters, wives or widows. What makes her different from many of her male colleagues she says, is that, ‘Whatever project I work on I put my heart into it, I have never looked at my audience as product ...
30 Aug 2022
DeLovie Kwagala - Don't be Perfect, Just be You
This week we are talking to the extraordinary DeLovie Kwagala, award winning photographer, artist and fighter for social justice. Identifying as non-binary, Delovie grew up in Uganda, suffering an abusive childhood and learning about survival the very hard way. They remember the experience of being kidnapped from school by their father, and growing up in isolation, ignored and rejected by their stepmother. Always feeling an outsider and different from their peers, DeLo...
15 Aug 2022
Jon Montoya - Walking the Seven Wonders
Our guest this week is traveller, ex ballet dancer and above all – walker – Jonatan Montoya. Jon has set out on a staggering journey – to go right round the world on foot, visiting each of the Seven Wonders of the modern world, a massive trek of over 50,000 miles. The sheer ambition is enough to take your breath away. Jon was born and grew up in Mexico City and after troubled teenage years, he admits he has struggled to find his purpose in life. But during ...
18 Jul 2022
Edwin Cameron - Taking a Risk
We kick off our series with former South African court justice, HIV advocate and tireless defender of LGBTQ+ rights, Edwin Cameron. From his tough childhood growing up in a children’s home, he went on to an outstanding legal career, and was described by Nelson Mandela as ‘One of South Africa’s new heroes’. In this episode, Edwin talks frankly about growing up as a poor white child in the apartheid era, about the trauma of getting diagnosed with HIV in the 1980s, and the difficult decisi...
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