Today, you will hear the views and ideas of our Pozcast guests. were eager to showcase their expertise and provide a platform for their views, but they may not always reflect or align with the views of The Positive Effect, or the Map Center for Urban Health Solutions. Welcome to podcast we are created by and for people living with HIV. On each episode, we explore what it means to be POZ. We challenge the status quo, and we share stories that matter to us. I'm James Watson, and I'm HIV positive. If you're living with HIV, listen up.
No, it doesn't hurt me personally so much. It upsets me. I get angry, and I get angry on behalf of other people. But I don't feel it makes me powerless. I think since I've been more open, telling my story has given me power. My truth is my power. That makes me feel strong and it means that I am not affected by that stigma in the same way. That doesn't mean that that stigma doesn't exist, and it doesn't mean that I don't spend a lot of time challenging that stigma. I just feel it a lot less personally.
We have a great show for you. This is Pozcast.
Hello, everyone and welcome to Pozcast. A few months ago I had the really good fortune to travel to Malta. My partner got a contract there, and I got to spend a few weeks there. It was so unexpected, so random. I was super excited, still am. And in case you're unfamiliar with Malta, it's an island state in the Mediterranean Sea. Just south of Sicily made up of three islands, Malta, Gozo and Comino, and Malta is the largest of these three islands. But it's still really small, with a land area of about 315 square kilometres, and a population of just under half a million. And it was late February, and the weather was warm and sunny. And as any Canadian knows that alone was just, wow, it was just bliss. And as an additional bonus, English is an official language in Malta, so it's easy to meet people and converse and tour around. And although Malta is small, it's an island of tremendous historical significance. I exhausted myself with touring its landmarks and I probably saw every war room and fortress and palace and ruin on the island. It was an amazing journey. But I also when I was there, I wanted to get some insight into what it was like to live in this beautiful part of the world as a person living with HIV. So I made a few calls and made an effort to reach out to the HIV community and eventually found myself connected to this amazing community led to HIV testing organization called Checkpoint Malta. And this is how I met our guest today, the wonderful Jackie Roberts, and one of Checkpoints board of directors. Jackie has been living with HIV for 24 years. She is a British born artist and activist and a 20 year resident of the Maltese island of Gozo. And Gozo, is this spectacular little windswept island, six kilometers off the coast of Malta, with a population of about 40,000 people and a land area of 67 square kilometers compared to Malta's 315 square kilometers compared to Canada's 10,000 square kilometers, just for context. So Jackie, welcome to Pozcast. How are you? Great to see you again.
Thank you, James. I'm so happy to be speaking to- I'm so happy to be speaking to you today. I'm doing really well. Thank you. On my little windswept rock.
Yes, you know, I reflect back on my time in Malta and Gozo and one of the fondest memories, I think, is going horseback riding with my partner on Gozo out of this little family farm on the coast, of course, and we were struck with just the rugged beauty of Gozo and how friendly everybody was. So as someone who lives there, and has lived there for a long time. How would you describe Goz, to someone who's never heard of it.
It really is a little gem. I mean, like everywhere else, it's getting built up now. There's been a lot of development in recent years. When I first came 22 years ago, it was common to see people still riding around on Donkey carts with all their family on the back going to the fields. And it was very primarily tourism, agriculture, fishing. Now it's much changed and much more diverse population. And I would say it's become a more interesting place to live because of the diversity but it's also changed a lot of its rural charm, but then I think that's the same for a lot of places.
That's true. So how does someone born in England, who spent most of her post university life working in Scotland end up on this small island in the Maltese archipelago?
Well, James, for those of you that like a love story, it was because of love, because of falling in love with somebody that I moved to Gozo. I've never even heard of Gozo, before, as many people haven't. It gets confused quite a lot with Goa in India, but it's nothing like Goa. Yeah, I met somebody purely by chance while I was in Scotland, and he had a house here, I didn't know that at the time, we kind of had a bit of love at first sight thing going on. He was quite a lot older than me, I was very sick at the time. I had been diagnosed with HIV, about six months or so before we met, a bit longer than that. And um, that didn't stop us. And he really wanted to come back and live on Gozo permanently and had this house for 20 odd years. And I was an artist and needed a studio. So he said, "Let's go and see if you like it." And I did like it very much. And so I moved. I gave up everything, gave up my job, my friends, packed up and, and came to live on Gozo to a very different life, actually.
Like that. Wow, that is a movie, isn't it? So let's talk about your HIV journey then. So, you've been positive for over 24 years. So, what was your What was your diagnosis experience like for you?
My diagnosis experience. Okay, so I was diagnosed in Edinburgh. And for those of you that don't know, Edinburgh, in the 1980s, was dubbed as the AIDS capital of Europe, because of the number of cases largely linked to a heavy intravenous drug using population. So transmission through sharing needles, and a very large gay community and a very transient community with a lot of students. And so that was where I was living at the time. I had had a bit of a problem relationship after becoming separated from my husband for a while, and then I started to get really sick, and I thought, well, I really should go and get tested. And I can't say it was unexpected, but it was still a big shock, that realisation, but I knew I would be very well taken care of in Edinburgh, and I had got a lot of friends who I knew I could get support from. But then when I went back the following week after having had more follow up bloods, and they got a better idea, then I found out, I was told that I had probably been living with HIV for about up to eight years, because the state of my immune system was really bad. My CD4 count was just below 10, I mean, it was very, very low. And my viral load was through the roof and I had a lot of symptoms of advanced HIV. Actually, in World Health Organization classification turns I was... I did have AIDS, so it was not an easy time.
No, and back then, I guess is that pre-therapy like, like was that, did you have medication?
I decided that I wasn't going to go on therapy straightaway. It was offered to me. And at the time, there was a lot of issues with side effects with the therapies then, and I was in a real Limbo stage in my life. I was quite shocked about the idea of being dependent on drugs for the rest of my life, where they going to work, where they not going to work? And that time as well there was an awful lot of stuff around, you can heal yourself if you have the will, you know Louise Hay and all this kind of business and you know, I had friends sending me things about, "you're in therapy and grow wheat grass in your airing cupboard, and if you can only have enough willpower..." So there was a lot of that nonsense going on. And, and also there was just this, this feeling of, "okay, this is my fate, then, and let's live with this and see what happens and maybe it's my time," you know... Then I did get extremely sick, after that first winter on Gozo, and my mom was sick. I was getting more and more ill. A damp old farmhouse with not a lot of money was probably not the best place for somebody that was HIV positive to be living. I had a lot of chest problems. And the symptoms that I had had got much, much worse. And then when I went back to the UK from my mom's funeral, I was then hospitalized within two days in what was euphemistically then called the AIDS Ward in the Western General in Edinburgh. And I had PCP and very nasty infections related to that as well. And then I kind of went, "Okay, just give me..." How am I allowed to swear? I just said, "Give me the fucking drugs, basically, I've had enough now! Just let's try..." And so that was a big turning point. Yeah. And then I got I was more able to get into my work, because my health was better. There's more than one turning point, isn't there, I think in a HIV journey for us long term survivors!
Absolutely. So how has HIV, do you think, shaped your perspective on life?
Oh, it certainly made me much braver, I think, much more willing to take on new things, to give less of a damn about what people think, to live life as full as I can.
Right. Yes. And you decided, at some point that you were going to be open about your status. And, what brought that on?
Well, I had been opened with a lot of friends from right from the beginning. And I had been open with members of my family. It was difficult at first, and it took five years for me to tell my father because of the stigma around HIV. He was older. But I hadn't been an activist in that sense that I am now. And I had been very careful about who I told. And I was very worried about, especially on a small island like Gozo, very Catholic, very conservative... Yes, it was difficult. So at a certain point, I thought about it a lot. And I talked to my now partner, of 15 years, about it. And he said, "You know, I really think you should, we're ready, we can do this!" He was behind me. I knew he was behind me for many years before I actually did finally become totally public about it. Because it would affect him as it always affects our partners and our loved ones, because there's a reflection on them, isn't there? And he was involved with a lot of local different local networks, to me, more traditional things like local choirs and things like that. So I wanted him to not have a hard time. But then it was actually again, through a real low point, through real adversity, because at the start of the COVID pandemic, which was very difficult for all of us in lots of ways, and imagine being on a small island in lockdown is fantastic, in lots of ways. Because the island was ours again, we didn't have to share it with anybody. And a lovely community was all together and helping each other, and it was amazing in so many ways for us. But the downside of that was an even greater sense of isolation when things go wrong. And what went wrong for me was the supply of antiretrovirals for Malta and Gozo became very short, which meant that I turned up to get my meds one day at the hospital pharmacy during COVID and was told, "we don't have any drugs to give you, because there aren't any." Yeah, it was a bit of a shocker. And as anybody knows, living with HIV, your continuity of supply, adherence to your meds, is something that's drummed into you from day one, you know, you must take them you must take them at the same time. And then to be told, "Well, we don't have any. We can't give you any..." Was was quite devastating to say the least. And I came home and spoke to my partner I said, "What on earth am I going to do?" You know, after screaming and shouting and getting extremely upset, then you sit down and you rush and think what can I do? So I was told I had to phone Malta and speak to the pharmacy at the main big hospital and see if they could help and they said, we have of the drug I was, one of the drugs I was on, "we have 10 tablets, for 10 patients, for 10 days basically." So I started Googling "How can I get my meds online?" You know, get them sent and then you think that's so expensive and, "are they going to arrive," because there was so many problems with the Post at that time, if you remember as well, with with mail getting through and they would obviously be coming from another country. And then I I just Googled, okay, HIV, NGOs or HIV support in Malta and *ping*, up popped up an amazing organization called HIV Malta. I contacted them, and spoke to an amazing activist volunteer who was also Gozotin, but living in Malta. And really, from then he helped, we were basically doing, if you can believe this, this kind of crowdsourcing thing for drugs. Two NGOs, checkpoint, and HIV Malta, and that was all they could do. And you know, I mean, we're open about this, and it's not legal, but what else you're going to do? So, it's like, "Who's got meds? Who can give somebody a few tablets, who is willing to?" You know, and there were literally people pulling up outside, you know, on street corners, handing over paper bags of meds, just to keep people going. And then, you know, we did get over that shortage eventually. But it was a horrific time. And there were a lot of people who really suffered. Because of the stigma, people were too frightened to speak to anybody, and try and get help. So, lots of people in that period just didn't take their meds because there weren't any. And they were also dropping through the net because of COVID as well, that didn't help. So, then in the nature of these things, once this very small amount of activists had got their hands and got their claws into me, they weren't going to let me go easily were they? So from then I found it a lot more, found out how much the need was here to be involved and be able to offer support. And just being open, James, because I learned from them, and I've learned in my journey now, that being silent, especially for those of us who actually have a choice not to be, is perpetuating the stigma and perpetuating a lot of the issues that we face a lot of, you know. We just face them so much here in Gozo and Malta because of the nature of the society. And so I decided, yes, I was going to get involved, and I was going to be open and I did interviews and I did events. And then they asked me if I would join the board of Checkpoint, which I said "yes, of course." And from there just got more and more involved and now involved in the testing program. So I'm doing testing with other volunteers, recruited a team of volunteers for Gozo, which was great. Just doing awareness raising work, and I'm speaking at Human Rights Conference this Autumn, as part of Euro Pride, to a big audience, Pan European audience, about my story and about the work of Checkpoint.
Wow, good for you! Good for you, how exciting. So, tell us a little bit about the work of Checkpoint.
Okay, so Checkpoint Malta... Some of you may know, there are Checkpoints all over the world, especially within Europe, Checkpoints are basically places where people can get tested. And in some places they test for all STIs and not just HIV, all run by volunteers and in the community. So Checkpoint Malta was started by, in 2018, only by a guy called Chris Vincent and a handful of others. He's Danish, he came to work on Malta and saw the need. And what differs for us, we're open to everybody. So, we accept that HIV can affect everybody and anybody. And so we don't serve one particular community, which is a bit different from HIV Malta, which is quite aligned with the Malta gay rights movement, and focuses more on LGBTQ community. So that's what makes us different, but with we're doing very much the same work. And we do collaborate very closely. So we focus on anti stigma work, campaigning for improved health care for people living with HIV. We provide information and support. At the moment, we're getting a lot of inquiries from people who are coming to work or study on Malta from all over the world. I mean, real diverse number of countries, and they want to know things like, "Can I get my meds for free? If not, how do I get prescriptions filed? How do I access health care?" All these kinds of things about PrEP and PEP. So, we address those issues. And also, we do the testing, as you mentioned before, community testing. Our transmission rate in 2020 was 15.9 per 100,000 people, so, it's very high. Also the rate for other STIs is very high as well, not just for HIV, and worryingly the transmission rate has doubled in the last 10 years. So, Malta, sexual health policy wise, is obviously getting something extremely wrong. And there's all kinds of reasons I think for this, which as activists we're really aware of, and healthcare professionals are really aware of. You know, one of the things is, we haven't got an updated sexual health policy, we've been waiting 11 years for the policy to be updated. So, we've got no working document, as a starting point for policy in the country. So that's something that we're obviously agitating for quite strongly and trying to feed into, there's lots of work being done on it, but nothing actually published, and nothing that can be acted upon. And another reason is that things like, we don't have compulsory sex education in schools, that's a very difficult one, some schools do do that very well, others don't. So you've got youngsters becoming of sexual maturity having very little or no knowledge or information about their own sexual health and reproductive health. We have a situation where PrEP is not free, you have to have a prescription. And you also have to pay, so 60 to 80 euros a month that would cost you hear. A lot of other countries within Europe are now providing PrEP for free as part of their active campaign to reduce HIV transmission rates. And, and certainly the UK are having some very, very good results with that. We've also got a situation here where PEP, the post exposure prophylaxis, that is not easily available, and you would have to go to A&E, Accident and Emergency, at the main hospital to obtain it. And it's only available for free if you filed a police report, and you've had non consensual sex, i.e., you've been assaulted, basically. So that's very difficult. And you know, you've also got to set it in the context, James, of contraception isn't free, either. So everybody, every woman has to pay for their contraception. And you're also, we're also in a country where abortion is still illegal for any reason. So it's quite anomalous within the European Union.
Wow, that's incredible.
Yeah, it's a biggie, I know, it's quite difficult for people to get their heads around, especially in a country, which, for example, is top for legal rights for LGBTI people. So you know, there's a huge discrepancy here. And things like you know, condom use is extremely low. But also condoms are not freely available. And in other European countries, condoms would be given at secondary schools, colleges, you know, you can pick them up from a doctor's surgery, from public buildings... From the hospital, you can't even pick up free condoms from the hospitals here!
What do you think the like, what's the priority?
Well, I think the main priority is get this policy out that they've been working on for years with input from all the NGOs and all the people who know what they're talking about here. And just... Okay, from a purely personal point of view, not speaking on behalf of Checkpoint or any other organization; my opinion, is that the sexual health policy and what government has been told is so... They're going to have to change things so radically, that they're actually so frightened, that they've been dragging their feet on issuing this. And the state we're at at the moment is saying, Oh, well, it's gone on so long, we now have to do the research again, so that we're, so that we know, we have the right thing! But sorry, it's been 10 years, can we even, you know, instigate some of the things that were there 10 years ago, rather than have no policy at all? So that would be a big plus, but urgent resources, human and financial resources into the GU clinic, because they're doing excellent work, the staff there, the clinical care is fantastic. Once you're on treatment, and in the system, then the treatment is world class, but to get through the testing and everything else is very hard for people. And also, we need to make testing less stigmatized, more normal. It's just because probably because of the lack of sexual health education, from school, through families, through community. That message isn't getting through so it's not seen as normal to get tested, like in other countries it would be seen as a much more routine thing to do and much more normalized thing to do if you were sexually active. The NGOs are putting out excellent information. We have very few resources, certainly no government resources, and we can manage to get out information in an accessible form that's actually accurate or effective. We have to put pressure on government to just do the basics! And we're not even really getting the basics at the moment. And it's very, very frustrating for the staff, working in these situations, not just the clinical staff, but the health educators, you know, all the people working in the health promotion, and disease prevention, they get extremely frustrated, too. And one of the things that I'm quite interested to look into is within Europe, what can be done, and this is probably the next stage for us having gone, now we're starting to do our testing program, our community testing program, what we're finding out through that, and how much of a need there is for that. So yeah, one thing is the hospital system. But actually, community testing is the way things are going all over the world to actually take HIV, sexual health services outside of the hospital system and put it in a community setting. But for us here, for that to happen, a lot of pre-work has to be done, if you know what I mean, for that to be effective. Otherwise, again, it's just a well, okay, who does it in the community setting? Because the NGOs aren't, don't have the capacity, and we're all very recently set up as well. I don't know in Canada, how long, you know, some of your agencies have been in existence, but for us, it's only really since about 2019. And then of course, we had COVID. So we were almost dormant in some ways. So we're really we're looking for advice as well from other countries, especially what would be interesting, some of the countries that faced similar problems to the ones that we have to deal with, and similar contexts. What did they do to improve things?
Well, you know, Canada is doing a lot of things right. And I mean, I'd love to connect you with some people here to help or support or however they can. Just to switch gears a little bit; so, how important is it for you to stay connected then to other women, HIV activists.
Really important, and I find that something I'm now feeling the need for much, much more as an activist, and as an older woman, facing some different challenges, maybe to those challenges I faced when I was younger and first diagnosed. And I've always believed, you know, that the things that connect us are far greater than the differences between us. And so, I have always enjoyed connecting with people from all over the world from many different contexts, because I think we have a lot to learn from each other. Not just as people but as activists and a lot to learn from the situations in each other's countries. I would find that tremendously rewarding and useful, and usually fun. It's usually fun connecting with people. It has certainly been fun connecting with you, James, since we first met, not in person yet, but hopefully one day. I think, you know, there's all kinds of things we face as women. I was just thinking today about the whole, how do we how do we put more pressure on to get women better represented in drug trials, for example, and healthcare initiatives? Because, we know that women aren't well represented and older people aren't well represented, the population of people aging with HIV, that's something that we're really going to have to step up on too. And I think quite a lot of us women have found our own ways of negotiating things like how we deal with side effects of some of the drugs and how, you know, how we negotiate sex, how we negotiate disclosure, how we keep ourselves healthy mentally and physically. So I'm very interested in that and connecting with other women about that, but just, you know, feeling some sisterly kind of allegiance across boundaries, national boundaries, would be great if women would like to get in touch with me.
Yeah, yes. Hopefully through this podcast, you know, we can connect you to some people. We certainly have some great women activists here in Canada for sure.
I would really like that.
So can you Talk to me a little bit about how HIV stigma has manifested in your life.
I think there's differences aren't there, because there's different types of stigma, there's also perceived stigma is quite a tricky one when you know, it's like almost like this self censorship thing. And we are... We can be our own worst enemies. And the way that we treat ourselves can be really hard. And I think that affected me a lot in the early days, you know, a lot of sort of self loathing and blaming myself and feeling I deserve this, and all these kinds of feelings. And that, you know, of course, that comes from wider society's attitudes, but we internalize this. Even if somebody hasn't been directly horrible to us, we kind of feel almost that the world doesn't understand and the world is against us. But I think that, over the years has been a lot of different things, particularly related to things like criminality as well, and criminalization of HIV, which in the early days, I felt very strongly because you have to remember in the early 2000s, that there were legal cases being brought in, I think some of the first ones were in Scotland, against people, for transmitting HIV to a partner. And these cases, sometimes were being brought by the families and things like that, and how that felt, and how that also fueled people's attitudes, as well it's like, a way of criminalizing sex had been found, you know, and, and being told, you must disclose, or otherwise you could be jailed! Well, I mean, well, that's a big thing, isn't it? So I had, you know, a new partner who had kids and grandkids, and they come and visit. And it's like, the big thing in your mind is, I'm gonna have to tell them that I'm positive. Because if they don't know that he knows, and that he's fine about it all, then why, you know, sort of stuff like that. And in countries where HIV is still a criminal thing, then it's very hard, as Malta is one of those places. And also, as a woman, it's this invisibility thing, isn't it? It's like, women don't have HIV. And as as a sexual being, as well, I think there's a lot of stigma around women, HIV, sex, transmission through sex, people, assuming that you must have been somehow a victim, that this was something that had been done to you, and making lots of assumptions about that, or making judgments based on your status. Even in a medical situation, the fear of people finding out in relation to my work as an artist, and how that might affect my reputation. And just sitting there and people saying awful things, assuming things about people and making statements about HIV and AIDS, and based on misinformation, and just sometimes pure nastiness. In those times, were you going to say anything? Were you just going to keep quiet? Were you going to try and argue? Or are you just going to walk away? And how that stays with you, James, you know? Those mental pressures on you, when you're living around all that kind of stuff.
Constantly negotiating with yourself?
Yes, constantly, as we do about things like disclosure as well, that's why in a way it's so much easier to be open. Because you can still choose who you tell. But if word gets out, then it's not the worst thing and you've got lots of people to back you up and fight your corner, you know. It just means you're part of a much bigger tribe that's a lot more vocal and stronger and more powerful.
So do you feel that you are on top of it now, you've managed HIV stigma, do you feel you're impacted by it still?
No, it doesn't hurt me personally, so much. It upsets me. I get angry, and I get angry on behalf of other people. But I don't feel it makes me powerless. I think since I've been more open, and my truth, telling my story has given me power. My truth is my power. That makes me feel strong. And it means that I am not affected by that stigma in the same way, but that doesn't mean that that stigma doesn't exist and it doesn't mean that I don't spend a lot of time challenging that stigma. I just feel it a lot less personally.
Right. And would you have to surround the whole stigma piece, I guess, do you have advice for younger people who are newer to their diagnosis around HIV stigma and how they might move through the world?
I think, connect with as many people as you can, who are living with HIV and who have been through the long haul as well, because it's very important to not just connect with with the medical side of it. And there is a lot of help, there are a lot of people who are more than willing to talk, to mentor, and just to help you negotiate through this world, and also, you know, to show you that you're going to be living with this for a long time. And you will have ups and downs, that's normal life has ups and downs, but you can live an amazing life. The strength is, is being together and open with people when you feel strong enough to do that. That really will help you.
So I want to talk about your art. So how would you describe your work as an artist?
Well, I work in metal and other media, but mostly, primarily in metal. So that's steel, copper, and brass. Sometimes I use rusty old bits and things that I've found and sometimes I work with new sheet metal. So I weld, and I use a lot of power tools. And it's quite physical, dirty, lots of fire, and flames, and hammers, and things you know. So my work is very important to me. I changed my life before I came to Gozo. And before I was diagnosed with HIV, to become an artist, I had done other jobs, and a whole range of other jobs, that most of which I really enjoyed, some of which were really shitty, and I only did to just earn a bit of money. But I went back to college, yeah. And learned how to weld and how to do artistic metalwork.
Why metal?
I just felt drawn to metal. You know, I remember as a kid, my dad used to take me to see this old blacksmith. And he had this amazing blacksmith shop, you know, dark, and the big braising fire, and anvils, and I just loved it. It fascinated me, just from being a kid. But then I was doing some work in South Africa. And we were doing a lot of work in townships, with artists, and dancers, and community activists. And I remember seeing amazing metal work that was being done from just scrap, from nothing really, and people producing great work. And thought I would just love to do something like that. And if people who had actually very little in terms of material resources, and sometimes very little formal training could do that, well I certainly could try. And then I did a two year course, which was just for women, which was funded through the European Commission. And it was basically getting women into non traditional skills, and metal work in many countries is a non traditional skill for women. Certainly is in Malta, I think I created a bit of a stir when I first came here, that it was quite a thing. Can you imagine? It was like, you know, if I had been more open, then it's like, there's this woman, metal worker and she's also got HIV! It was a scandal enough in a way to be a metal worker and a woman. But my work is, I think I take quite a feminine approach to the medium. It's by no means kind of industrial looking. And it can be medium scale, or sometimes pieces, you know, very small or wearable pieces. I don't do earrings. I don't do small jewelry in that sense. But I do do kind of quite statement neckwear and things like that.
Well, it must be very, I mean, anything creative, I mean, it must be very cathartic, I suppose in some way. Like, you are certainly putting a piece of yourself into something, in creating something. And I wonder how much this exercise of your creativity is also your self care?
Very much. And it really upset me a lot in the early days when I was physically so poorly, that I found it hard to work. And other times in my life when I've been, you know, like, I broke my ankle and I couldn't work or I broke my wrist and I couldn't work. Yeah, it's been tough. It has been part of my healing, I think and if I hadn't had that, I think it would have been very difficult. And it also meant, in a way it was easier for me to negotiate the world living with HIV because as a self employed artist, I didn't have that same, having to deal with an employer. And did I need to disclose that, or if I was taking time off, I can basically work, you know, my working day around other things. And I really enjoyed that, being visible for something other than the professional jobs I'd done. I found that really interesting, that whole process of putting my work out there and, and speaking about my own creative process, and I for quite a long time was also teaching metal work. I really, really enjoyed that, passing on those skills. And I think because of the course I did, and it was such a great bunch of women, I think it's a great tool for women's development, and women's empowerment doing something like metal work, because it's so physical, and especially women experiencing some mental health issues or whatever, just to be able to hit things, make lots of noise, learn how to use power tools. And that confidence, especially for a lot of younger women as well, having taught some young women 14, 15, 16, who had never done anything like that before, but really, really took to it. So, there's something about metal, you know, there really is something about it! Any metal head will tell you this. It's a very powerful medium.
So I'm going to finish our talk today with how I finish all my talks, with some this or that questions for you.
Okay.
And you have to choose one, I don't want any cop outs like I don't know, or both. So, logic or emotion?
Emotion.
Test the waters, or dive in deep?
Dive in deep!
Go to school or teach yourself.
That's a hard one. Uhm... Teach myself.
Explore space, or explore the ocean?
The ocean.
Morning or evening?
Very much used to be evening, but these days I would say morning, for sure. I'm an early riser now.
Fantastic, me too. Now we know a little more about Jackie. Excellent! Well, thank you so much, Jackie. I really appreciate it. I loved seeing you again. Hopefully I'll see you again. One day.
Yes!
Gotta get out to Gozo! And yeah, it's been an absolute pleasure, so thank you.
Thank you, James. It was a pleasure. Thank you so much for asking me to do this. I've really enjoyed it.
That's it for us this month! Thanks for tuning in. We hope you'll join us next time on Pozcast. And if you have any comments or questions or ideas for new episodes, send me an email at Pozcast4U@gmail.com. That's the number four and the letter U. Pozcast is produced by The Positive Effect, which is brought to you by REACH Nexus at the Map Center for Urban Health Solutions. The Positive Effect is a facts based, lived experience movement powered by people living with HIV and can be visited online at positiveeffect.org. Technical production is provided by David Grein with the Acne Podcasting Company in Toronto.
