How I found the community I love

Durell Knights always knew he was different, he remembers playing with dolls and being teased by boys on the streets of his New York neighbourhood but it wasn’t easy for him to admit, even to himself, that he was gay. He joined the US army, where homosexuality was banned, as a teenager. He avoided questions by pretending to have a young son. Back in New York he fell into drug addiction and crime. What could have been a prison sentence was replaced with a stint in rehab. And it was while he was doing community work, as part of that sentence, that he started to turn his life around. Along with the Gay Men’s Health Crisis, GMHC Durell now runs support groups for the men his community nearly lost.

At the age of 26, Livey Van Wyk became the youngest person ever to be elected as mayor in Namibia. It was an achievement made all the more remarkable given her journey to that point. When she was 17 years old and still at school, Livey discovered she was pregnant. Soon after, she was diagnosed as HIV positive – something she and her family considered, mistakenly, to be a death sentence. She was stigmatised for her condition and was even physically attacked by her townspeople. But as Livey learned more about the disease, she became determined to end the stigma around it. She set out to educate her community and was eventually elected mayor, as she told Jo Fidgen in 2016.

Presenter: Asya Fouks

Producer: Julian Siddle

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(Photo: Durell Knights, smiling at the camera looking relaxed and comfortable. Credit Durell Knights)