World AIDS Day 2025: Bengaluru Woman Born With HIV Sets Sights On Everest Marathon

“We had no one to call our own. They claimed we belonged to them, yet we never truly had a family. All we had was sport, the only thing that held us, saved us, pushed us forward,” says Monika (name changed for security reasons), her voice steady but heavy with memories she rarely revisits. She recalls the day she stood on the podium at the Tata Steel Kolkata 25K in 2017, winning the women’s 10K category, a moment that felt like reclaiming a life long dismissed. As World AIDS Day (December 1) approaches, her story becomes a reminder of the challenges children like her endure, and of the doors sport continues to open.

Monika’s journey begins in a small hamlet near Bengaluru. Born with HIV, raised in stigma, and exposed to a world no child should face, her life seemed destined for silence. But sport became her unexpected escape. “I was 11 when Sir Elvis Joseph found me,” she says. “That one step changed everything.”

From the cramped, suffocating spaces of her childhood, she suddenly found herself running across open fields, breathing freely, discovering a world that stretched far beyond the walls that once confined her. Through a sports-led intervention and rehabilitation programme, she found not just training, but dignity, hope, and a sense of purpose she never imagined possible.

Today, Monika dreams of standing at the starting line of the Tenzing Hillary Everest Marathon, one of the world’s toughest high-altitude races, held every May 29 in honour of Tenzing Norgay and Sir Edmund Hillary’s historic 1953 ascent. If she qualifies through the Champion-In-Me run club, she could become one of the first HIV-positive athletes from her club to ever attempt it. “I don’t talk about my past… there’s nothing there for me anymore,” she says quietly. “I just want to move forward. My life is new now.”

She works at a multinational bank, a job she fiercely protects, knowing how easily others like her have lost employment once their HIV status was revealed. Each morning, she travels from Malleshwaram to the Kanteerava Stadium, training not for medals, but for meaning.

For her, participation is its own victory. Qualification is the first summit. The marathon is the next. “It’s our dream, not just mine. I hope someone will be there to cheer for us,” she says, her eyes glowing with a mix of hope and uncertainty.

Alongside Monika, three more young athletes will attempt the Everest marathon this year. And behind each of them stands one man who believed in them long before the world ever would.

Sixteen years ago, Elvis Joseph left a comfortable corporate career to build something India had never seen: a sports-led rehabilitation initiative for HIV-positive children. ‘Champion-in-Me’ began with just 20 children in Karnataka. Today, more than 3,000 have passed through the programme, children who now have an identity, a community, and the chance to build independent futures.

Some have competed at the Children’s Olympics in the Netherlands. Some have run the Boston Marathon. Others have travelled to the Gold Coast. Step by step, they are proving that stigma can be outrun, but only if someone first gives them the shoes. “These kids are vulnerable,” Elvis says. “And ironically, our country still has no plan for them.”

But for Monika, the path ahead is clear: keep running, keep climbing, keep believing. Every stride is a step away from the darkness she was born into, and a step toward the life she is determined to create.