Lucky Mazibuko’s contribution to the fight against HIV and AIDS – and particularly in helping break down the stigma so that more people could openly seek help and treatment has been of immense value to all South Africans living with HIV and AIDS. Today many South Africans are disclosing their status and seeking help, but this was not always the case. Ove two decades ago, it took courageous activists to come forward and change the narrative around being HIV positive. Lucky has been living with HIV for close to three decades and was one of the first South Africans to openly declare his status in a time when most still feared the public reaction and spread his message and his activism through a newspaper column in the country’s largest daily newspaper, The Sowetan. In this conversation, we talk about advances in HIV/AIDS treatment and what living with the virus looks like in modern day SA.