Hi, my name's Danny West, and I'm living with HIV. I'm based in the UK, and I run my own company, which is called RYL Training, Coaching, and Leadership Consultancy. And I work with people who are living with HIV and the organizations that support them. I was one of the first people to be diagnosed with HIV here in the UK, back in 1985. And at that time, being diagnosed with HIV was a really, really scary thing. I was given 18 months to live at that point in my diagnosis, and so really didn't expect to be here 23 years on. Back in 1985 I was at the beginnings of my social work career, and I just got my first qualification. But having been diagnosed HIV positive, I realized very soon that one of things I needed to take a check on, and to focus on was the amount of stress I was under. So I soon took long-term sick leave and decided to take stock and come to terms with my diagnosis. As I said I've now been living with HIV for the past 24 years. And in many ways, having HIV has springboarded me into doing a whole number of things in my life that I probably wouldn't have done if I wasn't living with HIV. HIV in many ways for me has been an opportunity to live the life of my dreams, really, and to achieve the things that I really feel are important. Back in 1985, my diagnosis and my prognosis, my prognosis was 18 months to 2 years. And as you can imagine I went into an acute state of shock. My friends and family were equally shocked, and none of us really knew how we were going to deal with this new disease which we had very little information about. The focus in 1985 was very much about dying with HIV. And I've seen most of my generation of friends die. I've seen family members die. And I've worked extensively with people who are dying of HIV. In the early days I became involved in some of the very first organizations that were set up to support people living with HIV. And I did that until the early nineties when I was appointed the first local government training officer for HIV within the UK. In the late nineties I decided to actually stop working and take good care of myself and I actually went to live with my partner in the country and looked after the house. And I actually took ten years, nearly in fact it was nearly fourteen years out of the field of working in HIV or any form of care or social work. I returned to the field of HIV about 3 years ago and I'm currently being treated successfully on combination therapy and I've been on combination therapy for the past five years. And it was on the basis of feeling very well and thinking about the future and now knowing that I might actually live into old age that I decided I wanted to do something very proactive and something very positive in relation to working with people who are living with HIV and in relation to supporting the organizations that are supporting people who are living with HIV. So I decided to set up my own company. And initially my company aimed to provide training and awareness around HIV. But I then became very interested in coaching, in personal performance coaching, in life coaching, and so I decided to train as a life coach, which I've almost completed, and actually began to use the tool of coaching with people who are living with HIV. I'm also very passionate about the leadership of people with HIV. And that is another particular area that my company and that my work takes me in. Soon after my diagnosis in 1985 a friend of mine took me along to one of the, to the very first HIV support group here in London, which was called Body Positive at the time. And I was absolutely terrified. I'd never met anyone with HIV, and of course I was in complete shock, and I was at that point fearing for my life. So we went along to this support group in London, which was held in a bar in London, and there I found myself in a room, with about a hundred other people who were also living with HIV. And it was at that point that things really began to change for me, because I began to sort of build some support networks in my life, which is crucial for anyone who's living with HIV. I was to meet my first partner who was living with AIDS soon after at a similar event, and he was later to die of AIDS. But as a result of meeting him, he introduced me to a guy called Christopher Spence, who was the founder of London Lighthouse, which was the first center here in London for people with HIV in the UK. London Lighthouse was unique in that it provided day support services, it provided training and educational services, it provided a daily respite service for people with HIV, but it also provided a hospice service where people could go and die with dignity, in very comfortable surroundings, being supported by their friends and loved ones. And I soon found myself working very closely with a number of people who were dying with HIV including my partner. So back in the 80s, the late 80s, and the early 90s the focus was very much on dying. And I saw most of my generation of friends die. It was pretty much like living in a sort of war scene--large numbers of young people dying--and you know I would attend funerals, on, two or three a week. Having come back to the HIV world some nearly 20 years later, or just sort of 15 years later, what I realize now is that with the advent of combination therapies, people are being treated very successfully and are now living with HIV. So I wanted to contribute to that idea, to that culture, if you like, which is another reason I set up my own company.