UN Cares - The UN system-wide workplace programme on HIV
Welcome to UN Cares on Facebook! Become a fan - share the information on this page and visit us on www.uncares.org for more information.
UN Cares is the UN system wide response to HIV within the UN workplace. We serve all UN staff, and their dependents, across the globe, wherever the UN is present.
13/10/2021
Many of you are United Nations colleagues who formerly worked on UN Cares and related initiatives. You probably met Martina Clark. And now she has a book out! We're so proud of Martina. Please check it out.
**
Our former UN system colleague, Martina Clark, is a remarkable human. While living with HIV for the last 30 years, Martina devoted her professional life to speaking out and advocating for change - both within and outside the UN system. Now, she has a book coming out.
You may have seen Martina in a video on HIV in the UN workplace, have been in a learning session on HIV that she facilitated or have known her as a dedicated colleague at UNAIDS, UNICEF, or the Department of Peace Operations. She has done all that and so much more, including: facilitating learning sessions for two Secretaries-General and their respective cabinets; serving as an NGO representative on the Programme Coordinating Board of UNAIDS (its governing body); speaking to a special session of the General Assembly on HIV; and being the first openly HIV-positive person hired by UNAIDS.
Now Martina is sharing more of her story with the world, through "My Unexpected Life: An International Memoir of Two Pandemics, HIV and COVID-19."
I had the privilege of reading an early draft of Martina's memoir and, along with the humour in both good times and hard ones, many stand-out moments stay with me. "While I was being painted blue, just before being photographed by [renowned photographer] Annie Leibowitz..." "When I came up out of the Tokyo subway, to see a 6-foot-tall poster of my own face on the kiosk billboard..." "When Madeleine Albright walked into the room while I was speaking..." "When, in Madagascar, it was reported in the newspaper that I had died…”
Having been told at the age of 28 that she was HIV-positive and had 5 years to live, the last 30 years of Martina's life have been unexpected in countless ways. Then in April 2020, she contracted COVID-19, from which she still experiences symptoms as a "long-hauler." Despite undergoing COVID-related eye surgery earlier this year, in her characteristic resilient fashion, Martina has polished the book, adding reflections from a second pandemic and it launched on 5 October! UN Cares friends and colleagues of Martina were delighted to be there to celebrate.
Available wherever books are sold, but please support independent bookstores!)