Jahnabi's World (2008)

Life and story of a woman, who contracted HIV from her husband, experiences hardship losing her husband and also her child from HIV. Yet, she publicly announces her infection and begins participating in relief activities that support HIV patients. She was even told once that her days were numbered, but that did not stop her. Jahnabi Goswami was an HIV/AIDS activist in northeastern part of India whose story demonstrates to millions of people living in India. In 1996, she was the first woman in northeast India to declare her HIV status. Jahnabi was infected by her husband who was infected with AIDS, before they married. Her in laws kept this secret from her and she ended up discovering the truth after her husband's death. She was then kicked out of her in-laws house and was denied custody of her daughter, who was also infected and passed away from AIDS. After the death of her daughter, Jahnabi found "Assam Network of Positive People" in 2002, an NGO, which mission was to "build capacity and skills of people living with HIV and to wipe away discrimination against them" Today, she continues to run the NGO and shares her story with people by attending different seminars and traveling to different countries. She raises awareness of HIV and AIDS and one of her ideas that she created is for individuals to get tested for HIV, before marriage. She states "Until my last breath, I will continue my awareness campaign. As I am living with the virus for the past several years, I know how cruel society is to people like us. But I declared my HIV+ status with an aim to help hundreds of others come forward and fight the menace, and also to make the general public more aware.