Welsh rugby legend Gareth Thomas and his Tackle HIV campaign have announced that the Tackle HIV Challenging Stigma Garden will feature at RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2025.
Tackle HIV is a public awareness and education initiative led by Gareth Thomas in partnership with ViiV Healthcare with Terrence Higgins Trust as the charity partner, inspired by his own experience living with HIV and the public misconceptions surrounding the virus.
This May will see the Tackle HIV Challenging Stigma Garden in full bloom at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, with visitors set to view how Gareth Thomas and award-winning garden designer Manoj Malde have used the magic of horticulture to tell the story of HIV stigma.
The garden reflects the significant advancements made in HIV treatment, prevention and care over the last 40 years.
“What we’ve managed to do is create a story of a lived experience through the beauty of plants and sculpture whilst also recognising the past and the lives lost to the HIV epidemic in the 80s and being able to remember them,” said Thomas.
“It’s a fantastic platform to be able to deliver some really important key messages about a difficult subject in a creative and visual way.
“It’s a great way to reach a different audience, people visiting the garden or reading about the flower show, and improving understanding of HIV stigma.
“It’s about getting people to look in the mirror and ask ‘Are you playing your part to destigmatise’ or ‘are you creating stigma maybe through the language you use or the conversations that you have’?
“I feel a lot of people are afraid to talk about a subject like this because they don’t know how to talk about it, so it’s a great way to reach a really strong, big audience and to tell the same story we’ve been telling through this campaign over the past five years but in a different way.
UNAIDS has set a goal of ending HIV/AIDS as a public health threat by 2030. Science has enabled incredible advances in testing, treating and preventing HIV but despite this, people living with, or at risk of HIV still face stigma and discrimination undermining these efforts.
A recent Tackle HIV survey revealed that a quarter of people (24%) would not consider taking an HIV test, and the majority of those said that was because they didn’t think they were at risk of HIV. In fact HIV can affect anyone yet stigma and misunderstanding around the virus prevent people from testing.
Thomas believes that without addressing HIV-related stigma and discrimination, the world will not achieve this goal, and is relishing the opportunity to promote better understanding, reduce stigma and motivate everyone to play their part in reaching this target.
He added: “My whole life has been about using my voice for something and when I finished rugby, when I thought that was the only thing I wanted to do and was capable of, I wanted to figure out what I would do next.
“This is a role that I take part in every day of my life and has become something I care desperately about because every day I have to deal with the consequences of stigma myself.
“To use my voice for a community of people very often pushed into a corner and silenced, and to represent them, is an important thing. There are not that many people willing to associate with me and acknowledge my voice when I talk about this subject so every opportunity I get to do it has to be done passionately representing not just me but the community and how it is to live with HIV in 2025.
“I take one tablet a day and it doesn’t stop me from doing anything mentally or physically. I live a normal, happy, healthy life.”
The Tackle HIV Challenging Stigma Garden will feature at the Chelsea Flower Show 2025, designed by Manoj Malde. Tackle HIV is a campaign led by Gareth Thomas in partnership with ViiV Healthcare, with Terrence Higgins Trust as the charity partner, which aims to tackle the stigma and misunderstanding around HIV. For more information visit tacklehiv.org and follow @TackleHIV
Featured Image Credit: BeatMedia
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