As the Road to Rio for AIDS 2026 begins, led by the International AIDS Society, I’m joining the #RethinkRebuildRise conversation through the lens that has shaped my work for more than two decades: translating lived experience into leadership, strategy, and systems change.

This moment requires more than renewed commitments—it requires structural honesty.

Rethink means interrogating HIV responses that still rely on outdated models, punitive policies, and narratives that sideline the people most impacted. Progress cannot be measured only by biomedical outcomes while legal violence, stigma, and racialized inequities remain embedded in our systems.

Rebuild means designing responses that are people-centered, justice-aligned, and accountable to lived experience. That includes rebuilding public health, policy, and funding structures so they support dignity, autonomy, and long-term sustainability—not crisis management or performative inclusion.

Rise means moving together across movements, sectors, and geographies—recognizing that ending HIV requires collective leadership, shared responsibility, and sustained investment in communities, not just programs.

The Road to Rio is a strategic inflection point. The choices made now will determine whose lives are protected, whose expertise is valued, and whether the global HIV response is prepared for the future.

I’m adding my voice to #RethinkRebuildRise and invite others to do the same—by sharing stories, insights, images, or messages that reflect what a truly transformative HIV response must become.

Because ending HIV is not only a scientific challenge. It is a systems challenge—and one we must meet together.