[ 2014-12-15 ]

Joyce Dzidzor Mensah

I never had HIV AIDS...It was all lies - Joyce Dzidzor
Joyce Dzidzor Mensah, Ghana’s highly respected
HIV/AIDS Ambassador, has told News-One she had
never tested positive for HIV but was only telling
the nation and the world on a lie just to satisfy
her selfish interest.

Joyce has claimed over the years that she was HIV
positive but was a healthy person because she was
on antiretroviral drugs.

She has had support and funding from several
organizations, institutions, banks and civil
society in her campaign across the country on how
to prevent HIV and how persons who have tested
positive can live healthily and happily with the
virus.

Surprisingly, Joyce, 27, has told 'News-One' she
was only a scammer and that she decided to engage
in a wild public deceit so as to get a place to
lay her head at a time her neighbors were wrongly
accusing her of having HIV.

“I was known as the HIV ambassador. The story I
shared in the past years was a fusion of my story
and the stories of others. The truth of the matter
is, I was never infected with HIV,” she said.

Meanwhile Dzidzor has toured several Ghanaian
schools and mounted international platforms to
fight the stigma against HIV & AIDS victims as
well as encouraging young men and women to abstain
from premarital sex and unprotected sex.

Below is exactly what Dzidzor said:

I met a man in my church where I used to
fellowship. We fell in love but I didn’t know of
his HIV status.

Though he knew he was HIV positive, he never told
me. A member of the church who is a nurse once saw
me with him and she called me to advise me. The
nurse advised me to be careful with him because
she knew of his HIV status. Unfortunately for me,
I met the nurse just a day after I had sex with
the man.

I then confided in the nurse and she asked me to
quickly report at the hospital so that I can be
given PEP (Post Exposure Profilaxis). I did
exactly that in order not to contract the HIV
virus.

I became pregnant though, but I decided to keep
the pregnancy.

My boyfriend fell sick and died before I had the
baby. People stigmatized me without knowing if I
contract HIV from him or not. I was eventually
beaten and thrown out of the house I was living in
with my parents. Having nowhere to stay, I went to
live in the secretariat of the associations of
persons living with HIV.

I prayed along and behaved as if I had HIV too
just to have a place to lay my head and learn from
people living with HIV. I attended a lot of
workshops organized by NGO’s on HIV just to
equip myself with information. I heard lots of HIV
interesting stories from people on stigma related
issues.

At a point in time, I accepted and lived like a
person living with HIV. And I always told my story
as if I was living with HIV, I shared my story
based on what I went through just to let people
know that people with HIV are normal human
beings.

I would have contracted the virus and probably
died but God saved me. That was why going to
schools to educate them became my passion just for
students to abstain from premarital sex.

Why I Acted As A Person Living With HIV

I realized that there was no way of defending
myself when people started gossiping about me in
my neighbourhood. It was because my boyfriend in
the church died of AIDS and my church members and
neighbours knew he died of AIDS. There was no way
I could ever defend myself.

At a point, I had to accept the situation at hand.
I knew there was going to be a time the truth
about my status was going to come out, and this is
the time.

I plead with the general public and my fans not to
be disappointed in me for acting all these years.
It was worth it because a lot of lives were saved
through my advocacy work.

I also sincerely apologise to the hundreds of
churches I have been to with my message both in
Ghana and abroad to forgive me. I did it to fight
HIV stigma and discrimination.

I also plead with schools, institutions and banks
who have all benefited from my story to forgive
me.

I now therefore want to thank all who have
supported me throughout these years one way or the
other.

Why The Confession Now?

I want to officially announce to the general
public that I am no more the HIV ambassador due to
the fact that the First Lady has been made the HIV
ambassador.

Also, there have been rumours in town that I am
dead but as at now I don’t know the source of
the information. I was out of the country for
three months now and I returned only to be
receiving calls and text messages asking if I’m
dead. My stepfather nearly collapsed when he heard
the news about my death. I want to inform everyone
that I am not dead.

Source - News One

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