Part 6: Our future is our past

Our Forgotten Epidemic

There’s a lot to be proud of in the response to HIV and AIDS in Aotearoa. We’ve come a long way since the early 1980s — but the mahi isn’t over just yet.

Since the discovery of life-saving treatment, much has happened in the HIV space. Prevention, testing, treatment, combating HIV stigma, and educating the public have never been more important.

This is not the end of, or the whole story, but a beginning. In this very short series, we’ve been proud to share parts of this important legacy. Still, we know there are many more stories to tell, many other pieces of work that deserve recognition, and so many more incredible people who should be celebrated. We hope this series can be the start of bringing to light those stories yet to be told.

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Thanks for listening to Our Forgotten Epidemic, a show about Aotearoa New Zealand’s response to HIV and AIDS, and some of the many brave individuals who changed the course of history.

Burnett Foundation Aotearoa is proud to be able to tell part of this important story from the perspectives of some truly remarkable people. And we want to acknowledge there’s so much more than we can tell in this short series.

• Our Forgotten Epidemic was produced by Wavelength Creative, in collaboration with Burnett Foundation Aotearoa.
• Written and researched by Alyssa Partington, Matt Bain and Dr Jason Myers.
• Music composed by Alex Cox | alexcoxmusic.com
• Hosted and narrated by Dr Jason Myers.
• Many of the voices you’ve heard in this episode are from a series of interviews conducted by Dr Cheryl Ware in 2019 for the New Zealand AIDS Foundation Oral History Project.
• Many thanks to Pride NZ for allowing us to use portions of the interviews with Jane Bruning and Kate Leslie. You can listen to these interviews in full, alongside many others, at PrideNZ.com
• Thanks to Keith Robinson, Robyn Mihaere and Ian Kaihe-Wetting for allowing us to interview them for this project.
• The interview with Bruce Richman you heard in this episode was conducted for NZAF in 2018 by Dr Jason Myers.
• Special thanks to our test listeners including staff living with HIV at Burnett Foundation Aotearoa, Gareth Watkins, the Lesbian and Gay Archives of New Zealand and PrideNZ.com
• Special thanks also goes to Peter Davis for his excellent book, Intimate Details and Vital Statistics: AIDS, Sexuality and the Social Order in New Zealand.

This show is produced in collaboration with Wavelength Creative. Visit wavelengthcreative.com for more information.