The Mission and History of Positively Healthy

From his HIV diagnosis in 1985 until his death in April of 2009, Cass Mann was one of the world's longest-term HIV-positive survivors. He founded Positively Healthy, the UK's only HIV/AIDS charity staffed exclusively by openly gay men, which provided HIV services including education, support, and peer counselling. These videos now archive his wisdom and insight for future generations. Here he talks about the mission and history of his not-for-profit charity Positively Healthy. Positively Healthy was formed as the result of the death of one of Cass Mann's closest friends, David Reichenberg, one of the world's leading baroque oboe players who played in the 'English Concert'. After he died, Cass went into shock and decided he didn't want to see anyone else die like that. Cass got linked up with Simon Martin, who had founded 'The Journal of Complementary and Alternative Medicine', and an HIV positive nurse named Dietmar Bolle who worked in London's first AIDS ward. Over lunch, they came up with the name Positively Healthy and decided to prevent all the deaths from AIDS that they could. Dietmar later died of AIDS but confessed that he really died of loneliness. The first group of trustees was mainly composed of medical doctors and nurses. Cass taught the English and Welsh Nursing Board AIDS awareness courses for several years. The ethos from the beginning was that Positively Healthy would pay no salaries, own no premises and would be 100% run and directed by its service users. That approach has never changed. The charity is 100% run by its beneficiaries. For more information about HIV/AIDS, visit http://www.AIDSvideos.org/. This video is freely downloadable from http://www.archive.org/details/TheMissionAndHistoryOfPositivelyHealthyAnHivNo... . [Do you want to help prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS? Are you fluent in a language other than English? Then volunteer to translate our videos into other languages! Click http://AIDSvideos.org/translate.shtml to to learn how you can help!!! © Copyright 2008-2011 Global Lifeworks. All rights reserved. This work is licensed to be used for non-commercial purposes under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/.]

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• HIV
• AIDS
• Positively
• Healthy
• mission
• prevention
• death
• cass
• mann
• positively
• healthy

[PhilipRochester]

Superb video in which Cass outlines the hows, whys and wherefores of the rationale behind the formation and operation of Positively Healthy and why this charity has been so successful in lasting for 23 years as of 2008. This is one AIDS charity which will definitely outlast all the AIDS charities run by HIV-negative careerists and opportunists and one that I intend fully to support as an HIV-positive gay man myself.

[SylvanoDeMedici]

Cass, respect and big love to you, man! I first heard Cass at the International AIDS Conference in Amsterdam in 1992 at which he spoke alongside the discoverer of HIV, Luc Montagnier, and Cass was issuing the same warnings then he is today. It is up to gay men if they heed his warnings and HIV could be stopped dead in its tracks if they did but, hey, the attitude is "Party on, dude!" and to hell with the consequences. The truth is that we gay men don't give a damn about living -- only about sex.

[Jibjub80]

I can't stand this guy. Although some of the things that he is saying is true, he has no tact. In one of his videos, he says, "I'll say something which may not appeal to many gay men. Anyone who gets infected today is doing so intentionally." This is an extremely insensitive remark. I mean he could get his points across without acting the way he is acting.

[mferrell9105]

your brother was a very compasssionate man im a straight man but my cousin is gay and ive noticed that most of the people i can truely open up too are gay when i had to go take a HIV test watching cass's videos helped me to cope with it even if i had contracted it which thank god i didn't but there is not a doubt in my mind that marcus and cass are both in heaven today god bless u and your family

[marcusbmatgmail]

I'm Cass's youngest brother. Cass will be missed. Pity that certain family issues were never resolved. Still thinking of you. Marcus

[woodchildspurs]

I have no doubt at all that if it were not for the work of positivly heathy and more exactly cass mann i would not be alaive today.

dramatic maybe but true.

may all the gods bless you cass.

LOLITA

[guppy478]

I've had the privilege of knowing Cass since the Eighties and love and respect him for all that he has done to support and educate our UK LGBT community about living with and preventing HIV. Hats off to you, my friend.