Long-Term Survivors of HIV: Legacy Chest

The Legacy Chest is a living archive of stories, reflections, and testimonies as told by long-term and lifetime survivors of HIV. Through powerful storytelling, these heroes share their journeys using video, audio, photographs, and text, preserving their lived experience, celebrating their resilience, and inspiring future generations.

The Legacy Chest exists to ensure that the voices of those who have lived through the HIV/AIDS pandemic are not lost to time. It honours the past while shaping a more inclusive and responsive future for all people ageing with HIV.

For decades, long-term survivors have carried with them the burden of loss, the hard-won knowledge of living through crisis, and the remarkable resilience of communities that refused to be silenced. Their stories deserve to be preserved as living resources that can inform, inspire, and guide the work that lies ahead.

The stories gathered here come from long-term survivors of HIV, including those lifetime survivors born with HIV, from across Europe, Canada and the USA, and beyond, who participated in the Long-Term Survivors of HIV Summit held in Sitges, Spain in March 2026. They represent a wide range of experiences, backgrounds, and generations, united by the shared experience of living with HIV and by their commitment to making their voices heard.

Some have been living with HIV for decades; others since birth or early childhood. Some have been at the forefront of activism and advocacy; all of them have navigated healthcare systems, stigma, and loss while building full and meaningful lives. All of them have something important to say.

We are deeply grateful to each storyteller for their courage, generosity, and trust in sharing their experience with the world.

Watch the full collection of stories

The Legacy Chest is intended as a resource for anyone committed to improving the lives of people living and ageing with HIV, including advocates, policymakers, healthcare professionals, researchers, educators, and future generations of activists.

These stories can be used to inform advocacy and policy change, as the lived experiences documented here offer direct, first-hand evidence of the gaps, challenges, and opportunities in current systems of care and support. They can also be used to educate and raise awareness, as in clinical, academic, and community settings these testimonies humanise the realities of long-term survivors in ways that data alone cannot.

Let these stories build bridges across generations and pass on the knowledge gained through decades of living with HIV. We hope they will inspire further storytelling and we encourage others to see The Legacy Chest as an invitation to contribute their own voice and experience in their own spaces and communities.

We ask that these stories be approached with respect and care. They are shared in a spirit of openness, and their use should always highlight the dignity and empowerment of the people who told them.

The Legacy Chest contains first-hand accounts of living through the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Some stories include references to gender-based violence, institutional violence, substance use, death and bereavement, stigma and discrimination, mental health struggles, and experiences of loss within communities and personal relationships.

These testimonies are shared with courage and care by the storytellers themselves, and we have sought to present them with the same respect. We recognise, however, that some content may be difficult for viewers, particularly those who have lived through similar experiences or who have lost loved ones to HIV/AIDS.

Please take care while viewing, and feel free to pause, stop, or return to these stories at any time.

The Legacy Chest is produced as part of the Long-Term Survivors of HIV project developed in partnership by the EATG, Ribbon – A Center of Excellence, The Reunion Project, and Realize. Ownership and stewardship are shared among these four organisations. The stories are hosted on the project’s YouTube channel and Legacy Chest content is shared on each of these organisations’ websites.

The project was made possible through grants from Gilead Sciences, ViiV Healthcare, and Merck, Sharp & Dohme.

The Legacy Chest is published under a Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). This license enables reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, for noncommercial purposes only, and only if attribution is given to the creator.

For enquiries regarding the use, reproduction, or citation of content from the Legacy Chest, please contact the project team directly.