GCN and Poz Vibe are proud to present ‘Poz World Panel: A World AIDS Day live podcast’. Set to take place on December 1, the very special fundraising event will be hosted at Trinity College Dublin in partnership with Trinity’s LGBT+ Staff Network. Tickets are on sale now, so grab yours before they sell out!

The commemoration of World AIDS Day, which takes place annually on December 1, is an important opportunity to recognise the essential role that communities have played and continue to play in the HIV response at the international, national and local levels.

This year’s World AIDS Day theme is ‘Collective Action: Sustain and Accelerate HIV Progress’, and GCN and Poz Vibe want to highlight how hearing the voices of some of the most marginalised members of our community is vital to fighting stigma and achieving progress. In this World AIDS Day live podcast, HIV activists Robbie Lawlor and Veda will lead a conversation with activists Prateek Bhardwaj, Christopher Freibott, Luis Noguera Benitez and Luis Phellipe Lutterbeck about how discourses on immigration and HIV are conducted and how people’s HIV status is often weaponised in racist rhetoric. There will also be a Q&A session at the end of the event, allowing audience members to contribute to the discussion and engage with the guests.

Prateek Bhardwaj moved to Ireland in 2021 from a small town called Baijnath in India. Since he found out he was HIV positive in 2016, he has been advocating for people with HIV and has been an integral part of the Poz Vibe family for the past two years.

Christopher Freibott has been living in Ireland since 2014, having moved here from a small town in Bavaria, Germany. After marching at Pride alongside the Poz Vibe Tribe for the past two years, he has started to be more open about his HIV status, working to educate people and create awareness on the topic.

Luis Noguera Benitez is an Irish Venezuelan actor and activist who combines different techniques to create campaigns to battle HIV Stigma. The mixed media videos narrate his story from many perspectives using the oniric and poetry to spread the message.

Originally from Brazil, Luis Phellipe Lutterbeck has been living in Dublin for nearly eight years. Since 2021, Phellipe has been raising awareness about living with HIV through his work as a hairstylist, by having meaningful conversations with his customers, and on social media.

Hosted by activist Robbie Lawlor and drag legend Veda, Poz Vibe is a podcast for people living with HIV and their friends and families. Its mission is to “create change and spread those positive vibrations throughout Ireland” and the podcast has represented a vital resource for the community, with the pair also winning the Noel Walsh HIV Activism Award at last year’s GALAS Awards.

Proudly supported by Trinity LGBTQ+ Staff Network, the ‘Poz World Panel: A World AIDS Day live Podcast’ event is a fundraiser for GCN, with some of the proceeds going to Poz Vibe. The event will take place on December 1 at the Edmund Burke Theatre in Trinity’s Arts Building, with doors opening at 5pm and the live podcast kicking off at 6pm. Tickets are on sale now. Grab yours before they sell out!