World AIDS Day 2025 Statement from the HIV Consumer Alliance of WA
HIV Consumer Alliance of WA: Supporting People Living with HIV/AIDS in Western Australia (PLWHA WA)
On this World AIDS Day 2025, the WA theme “No One Left Behind” reminds us that ending HIV transmission and achieving true health equality is only possible when every person affected by HIV, regardless of age, gender, sexuality, cultural background, postcode, or political views, has full access to prevention, testing, treatment, care & support.
Here in Western Australia, the WA AIDS Council (WAAC) once again brought our community together with a delightful afternoon of music, food, and red ribbons at Hyde Park, while the WA Museum has on display the WA AIDS Memorial Quilt for quiet reflection and remembrance of those we have lost. A heartfelt thank you to everyone who worked tirelessly to organise these events: volunteers, staff, and supporters. Your labour created spaces of both celebration and healing that our community deeply needs.
Bringing everyone together is more than a slogan; it is the proven strategy that has taken us from the darkest days of the epidemic to a time when a HIV diagnosis is no longer a death sentence. Leaving no one behind means reaching every person and every demographic still affected by HIV, especially those who continue to face stigma, barriers to accessing services, or bullying that harms individuals and makes our whole community look bad. True solidarity is not selective; it actively works to remove those obstacles and makes space for every voice at the table.
As we move forward into 2026, we must also have the courage to modernise. Organisations born in the crisis years of the 1980s and 1990s served us heroically, but some structures and cultures are now outdated and risk slowing progress. Reform and renewal are urgent so that our major institutions remain fit for purpose, focused on evidence-based outcomes, and free from the distraction of imported culture-war politics. Above all, leadership in Western Australia must be genuinely responsive, accountable, and grounded in the lived experience of genuine grassroots People Living with HIV/AIDS, whose voices must be centred, not marginalised or kept on the sidelines.
In unity and with clear purpose, we will get to zero.
James Rendell,
Convenor,
HIV Consumer Alliance of WA
Please Check out the links below!
www.youtube.com/@HIVConsumerAllianceofWA
www.facebook.com/PLWHAWA
Photography by James Rendell, CADT Photography • Thanks to Grok for this image!
