ALICE couldn’t put it off any longer. Once her husband had died, she just had to find out.

“I just decided to go and check my status,” she says, through an interpretor. “And I found I was positive.”

That was in 2006, when Alice was 27, shortly after her husband had passed away. Doctors checked her CD4 count, which monitors the number of healthy white blood cells, and put her on anti-retroviral drugs, and then she tried to get on with life. But it wasn’t easy.

“There was a lot of discrimination because I was living positively,” says Alice, now 32.

“But I was determined to take care of the children that my husband had left behind.

“I was a community health worker. I would work in the villages and meet people and help people with problems and treat them. Later on, I got more training in that area – and by then I was already a member of the Malanga Support Group.”

Alice speaks passionately about the importance of standing up to HIV, leads the support group in a song all about the importance of the drugs, and clearly prides herself on how she has bounced back.

“I have been a role model, walking around telling people of the benefits of living positively, but also expressing to them that it is very important that once you know your status, you accept it and move on with your life,” says Alice.

“Being the way I am, they see me as a role model.

“I have a lot of passion for what I am doing and my joy is that I have been able to talk to people who have been bedridden and are now up and doing their business as usual.

“I feel so proud that I have done something, when people testify that ‘If it was not for Alice, I would not be where I am today’.”

Gavin Aitchison travelled to Kenya with Christian Aid, to witness the charity's work with HIV victims and to meet those on the front-line in the fight against the virus.

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• Christian Aid’s Christmas appeal this year is focused on HIV, marking the 30th anniversary of the discovery of the virus.

If you would like to donate to Christian Aid’s Christmas Appeal, or would like to find out more about its work on health and HIV, visit christianaid.org.uk/christmas or call 0845 7000 300.