Segment 1

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Who's counting?

MADAN KOIRALA

First I'm going to play soccer. I'm going to shoot two goals. Obviously we will win! I have many qualities. I am handsome. I am a role model for the people watching.

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Madan

MADAN KOIRALA

I was a drug user before. My ambition was to use drugs, and die. I am from Nepal. I came to Delhi just to use drugs. One of my friends sent me a message saying the drugs were good in India. I said, "Okay, let's go." I spent all my money. I was totally broke. I thought, "I'm going to die, I can't live any longer." Suddenly, I changed my mind.

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New Delhi, India

MADAN KOIRALA

I got a message that there is a rehab center where we can get treatment, and I said, "Okay," because I am a drug user and I needed treatment. I changed my lifestyle, and in the meantime I met my girlfriend, who is really cute! Life is not only for using drugs, eating food, and sleeping.

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Millennium Development Goal #6: Stop the spread of HIV/AIDS and other major diseases

MADAN KOIRALA

Now I am employed at Michael's Care Home, and I have to take care of HIV positive people who need treatment and help. Whether they're HIV positive or not, I always see them as a human being and in need of care and treatment. In India, people think that if you're HIV positive, you've got AIDS and you're going to die soon. Actually they're quite different. "AIDS" means you're sick, but being "HIV positive" just means you have the virus. Still people are very scared. They think that if someone's infected with HIV, we'll get infected too. No, we can't get it through the air, we can't get it from mosquito bites, we can't get it from kissing, and yet still there's all this discrimination. They're made jobless, homeless, and they're kicked out of society. Let them live! There are lots of examples of people who are very sick, and then they take the ARV medicine and live normally. This is anti-retroviral medicine, "ARV" medicine.

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It reduces the multiplication of the virus.

MADAN KOIRALA

In India, only around twelve thousand people are getting this medicine. But there are over five million people infected with HIV. They should fight for them to get ARV medicine too. We need ARV medicine to be available free to everyone who needs it. Finish! There's something inside me that I can expose to the whole world. I am Madan Koirala, and I am HIV positive.

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HIV+

MADAN KOIRALA

If you look at me, can you make it out that I'm HIV positive? No, no one can tell.

MADAN KOIRALA

I'll break your camera!

MADAN KOIRALA

The message for the new generation is: positive living, positive thinking. No discrimination and stigma. There is hope. Now clap your hands, yeah.

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Millennium Development Goals: Eight goals for a better world by 2015. Everyone counts. www.element-tv.net

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Element. For more information, visit http://www.tve.org