Ten amazing people attended the Positive Speakers Whakataki new Speakers training in February 2024. Always a very powerful and exhilarating event, this one was no exception.
Five women and five men came from all over the country and spent 4 days together at the beautiful Long Bay Retreat Centre. The aim of the weekend was to learn how to structure and present a talk which included each person’s personal story while at the same time sharing important educational aspects about HIV.
These weekends can be very intense as people share their stories with each other which can at times bring up things which people hadn’t thought about for a while. The training provides a safe space for this to happen, supported by other people living with HIV.
The next step for the trainee speakers will be to attend a talk as an observer with an existing speaker. This will happen a couple of times, then the trainee speaker will do a presentation with the exciting speaker present as and observer and for support. Once the trainee speaker feels confident, they will then be on their own.
The Positive Speakers Bureau is a unique and powerful model of providing education and being hugely empowering for those delivering it from a lived experience.
