During Pride month we come together to celebrate the brilliant and diverse LGBT+ community which has been at the forefront of the fight against HIV for the last 40 years.
But it’s also a month where far too many brands now stick a rainbow flag on their logo or store without doing anything to lift up the LGBT+ community or champion the causes which support its needs and fight its corner.
That’s why we’re very proudly collaborating with high street retailer NEXT for Pride with all profits from their beautiful ‘Together’ collection coming to support our life-changing work to support people living with HIV and to end new cases of the virus by 2030.
What’s more, NEXT invited four of our brilliant Positive Voices speakers to model the collection and get involved in the social media campaign to promote it. Showing off the range while also including people living with HIV who are thriving and taking that information to NEXT’s customers.
Our Positive Voices speakers go into schools and workplaces to share their stories of living with HIV and the realities of life with the virus. Four of the programme’s volunteers – Ese, Sue, Steven and Sasha – visited Next HQ to model the collection and explain what ‘Together’ means to them.
'As a volunteer on the Positive Voices programme, 'Together' for me means always standing proudly with people like me who are living with HIV,' explains Ese.
'Our Positive Voices programme isn’t just about educating others. We’re a community of people who are there to support each other, alongside the talks we do online or in-person and opportunities like this one with NEXT to be together and celebrate all of the progress made in preventing, testing for and treating HIV.'
He added: 'I love the entire collection and the meaning behind it. I hope that it inspires people to learn about the realities of HIV today. Including that someone living with HIV and on effective treatment – like me – can’t pass it on to a partner.'
In the film, Sue says 'Together we can end HIV stigma', while Steven says 'Together means family, that’s what I get from being a Positive Voices speaker'. Sasha, who’s mum of three, added: 'Together means supporting adherence to treatment.'
The collaboration came about because of the passion of the Pride At Next LGBT+ Network to support Terrence Higgins Trust and people living with and affected by HIV. It’s brilliant to see the collection now online and in stores.
'The Pride At Next LGBT+ network are proud supporters of Terrence Higgins Trust,' says the network’s chair and head of retail HR, Andrew Jurd.
'Over the two years we have been working together, we have constantly looked at ways to increase the fundraising potential of our partnership. As a retailer, the natural next step was to look at a product partnership. The Together collection is the culmination of support from the Pride At Next, marketing and product teams, working in partnership with Terrence Higgins Trust to build a collection that celebrated the essence of our partnership 'Together'.'
Shop the ‘Together’ collection
You can buy the beautiful items from the ‘Together’ collection this Pride month via the NEXT website. All profits are coming to us at Terrence Higgins Trust to support our life-changing work to ensure people living with HIV live well and play our part in reaching the goal of ending new HIV cases by 2030.
