“I found a safe place to talk about HIV”: César’s Story

Cesar Fernando is a 30-year-old man living in Quetzaltenango, the second largest city in Guatemala. Cesar identifies as a gay man who takes care of his sexual health. However, it was difficult for him to find healthcare options due to his sexual orientation.

“My mother is a nurse, so I had heard about HIV, but I was so afraid to take a test because there is so much stigma around HIV and the gay community in Guatemala”,Cesar says.

Among the difficulties he experienced, Cesar says that when we wanted to take control of his sexual life and prevent HIV through testing, the treatment he received wasn’t the best. “People don’t hide their judgements and there is not enough confidentiality around the process.”

Cesar set his bad experiences aside and kept looking for a safe place to take control of his own health. In 2022 he virtually met a “Cyber-educador” from Asociación PASMO who offered him HIV prevention services through allied private laboratories. Cyber- educadores is a strategy created by pasmo in 2011, allows for personalized, discreet, and online assistance from since the first contact, enabling users get advisory by peers specialized in sexual health without fear of discrimination of any kind.

With the virtual voucher generated by the cyber-educador, Cesar went to a laboratory that was part of Asociación PASMO network and got tested for HIV. “The laboratory was really great. The staff was respectful, friendly, and reassuring. I knew that if my test was positive, they would also take care of me afterwards.”. César described feeling empowered now that he had found a safe place to talk about HIV.

Cesar believes that everyone should have the chance to take care of their health and now he’s proud of talking about his experience.“Each of us is responsible for taking charge of our health” says César with a smile. dice César con una sonrisa.

If you want the same experience Cesar had with sexual health and HIV prevention advisory, you can follow these steps:

• Contact an advisor (Cyber-educador)
• Request a voucher to get tested for HIV at a private laboratory that is part of Asociación PASMO network, which means it will have friendly and high-quality HIV/STI prevention services.
• Choose the best laboratory location for you.
• Share the necessary information to create the voucher which will give you access to the HIV test in the chosen private clinic. All the provided information will be confidential.
• Go to the private laboratory and take the test informing you go on behalf of PASMO.
• Get tested and return for the results on date indicated by the laboratory.

Asociación PASMO also has “Manu” who is a virtual advisor advisor in Versátil Facebook Messenger, (@versaatil) Manu can automatically generate virtual vouchers to get HIV tested in private laboratories for free and also generates voucher for other HIV prevention services PASMO offers under the “HIV Prevention, Care and Treatment” USAID’s project in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Panama.