My Living Positively Handbook

My Living Positively Handbook, from the Children’s Rights Centre (CRC), is a full-colour picture handbook for children living with HIV that encourages children to live positively and to participate actively in the medical and health management of their illness. It is available in English, isiXhosa, and isiZulu.

The format is written to elicit responses from young children and includes characters that are represented by dolls named: Aunty, Sister Thandi, Sipho, Lucille, and Dr. Themba. The book has spaces for participatory drawing and writing. The text is in story format and poses questions to engage children, such as "Is HIV like a cattle thief?", "What is HIV like?"

The contents include the following:

• "All about me
• Who else has HIV? 
• What is HIV? 
• Sinazo’s story 
• How do I get HIV? 
• How do I live positively? 
• What may happen to my body without help?5
• Zamo’s story
• How do I feel today? 
• Feel-good! 
• my medicines 
• Traditional healers 
• A trickster tale 
• How to take your medicines 
• Babalwa’s story 
• Children talk about having HIV
• HIV and discrimination 
• Patient file 
• my everyday colouring book 
• my blood tests 
• make a book 
• Other books to read 
• Thankyou’s and copyright 
• Notes and emergency information"

CRC has further information available on its webpage and its Facebook pages: CRC and the “Yezingane Network".

Click here to access this document in English in PDF format.