It is already the 30th anniversary of HIV/AIDS. By 2011, the number of people living with HIV in Ireland reached 6,000. Globally, an estimated 33.3 million people have HIV.

Alternative Miss Ireland started her life in 1987 – the same year that saw the first high profile AIDS-related death in Ireland and the founding of the first Irish HIV/AIDS service in St James' Hospital Dublin. 25 years later and the population living with HIV and AIDS is on a steady increase, due in part to advances in drug therapies. And still people are getting infected. Especially men who have sex with men. These people, who used to be under attack from the threat of death, now find themselves under attack from stigmatisation, discrimination and ignorance – from both outside and within their own communities.

While there is an emerging coherent global initiative underway to eliminate the epidemic entirely from the planet — in Ireland HIV/AIDS continues to be invisible, unspoken, stigmatised and ignored. With the sudden death of an AMI family member from AIDS-related illnesses in 2011, we realised that we had to ignite action to debunk stigma, spike knowledge and provoke understanding.

With her final and 18th Pageant, AMI is shouting out her message:

People! It's high time...

GET IT TOGETHER
GET AIDS