Democratic Republic of Congo: Life lines, visual stories of young people living with HIV
MSF-supported clubs offer medical and psychosocial support, helping youth with HIV break isolation and confront stigma.
Through fifty photographs, ten young people share their daily lives, hopes and challenges, offering a rare and intimate perspective on a reality often kept invisible. This exhibition is based on anthropological research conducted in 2024 within four HIV+ youth clubs in Kinshasa, supported by Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and Jeunesse Espoir. These clubs offer medical and psychosocial support, helping adolescents break isolation and confront stigma.
As part of the project, ten participants used disposable cameras to document their lives and express themselves freely through a method called Photovoice. Most were born with HIV and many have lost one or both parents.
To mark World AIDS Day, we are sharing ten of these images – one from each participant – offering a glimpse into the moments, relationships and daily realities they chose to make visible. This exhibition honours their strength, their voices and their right to define their own path.
Together, they created a mosaic of personal and collective stories – a way to show, through their eyes, what it means to grow up with HIV.
What does it mean to grow up with HIV?
“At first, when they tell you the treatment is for life, it’s a shock. You want to die. But now I realize it’s not so bad to take a pill every day. It’s just a little tablet – nothing compared to diabetics, for example,” says a 20-year-old woman.
“You see the door at the bottom left? That’s where my family locked me when they found out my status. There was even a padlock on the door. They brought me food and I stayed there for six months,” says a 21-year-old man.
“What the club gave me was love. The love they gave me – no one else can give me that,” says a 20-year-old man.
“I took a picture of my calf to show what happens when AIDS progresses in the body. My pastor told me to stop my medication and that with a prayer fast, I would be healed. But I ended up hospitalized at the Kinshasha international hospital centre. The others from the club came to see me – it really touched me. Now, when others in the club aren’t serious about their treatment, I show them my calves,” says a 22-year-old woman.
“Because of misinformation about HIV, relatives think we’re contagious. They isolate us – even with dishes. That’s what stigma is,” says a 19-year-old woman.
“I’m lucky to live a happy life with my family – we eat together, play together, do games… I’m lucky compared to others. My parents are alive and didn’t abandon me,” says a 20-year-old woman.
“I don’t want to show my face because it’s too risky,” says a 20-year-old woman.
“The club taught me to close my ears. It’s because I listened to people that I stopped my treatment. And I got very sick. I had to stop school because everyone who saw me could guess what I had. I was ashamed of myself. At the club, I realized I shouldn’t listen to ignorant people – because I have big dreams and if I want to achieve them, I need to stay healthy and stick to my medication,” says a 22-year-old woman.
“I still play sports, nothing has changed. You can do everything even if you’re HIV-positive,” says a 19-year-old man.
“At the club, I understood that we can live normally, get married, even have HIV-negative children. Here, this is my HIV-negative son,” says a 24-year-old woman.
