Two weeks after Jing Lin told Tim that he was HIV-positive, she received a message of gratitude from him: “Thank you so much on that day for supporting me.”

Jing was relieved. Tim was the first client she ever broke the news to, and his response made her feel that her nerve-racking hours—spent practising how to deliver the information accurately and empathetically—were not spent in vain.

But she soon found out that it was not how she talked to Tim that left an impression. Instead, what mattered was a mundane act that she carried out reflexively.

“He seemed like he couldn’t talk,” she recalls, “so I asked him if he would like to have a drink.”

And it was this offer of a glass of water that Tim had remembered, and which had touched him the most.

In that moment, Jing realised that when receiving such devastating news, people don’t necessarily want all the information. Rather, they need to know that they are in a safe space where they will not be treated differently, and can receive help and emotional support.

For over 30 years, this is precisely what Action for AIDS Singapore (AfA), a non-governmental organisation that combats HIV in Singapore, has been doing for the community.

Jing is a senior executive at AfA where she, along with other full-time staff and volunteers, organises the anonymous testing service, runs outreach and education programmes, and does HIV advocacy work.

Such measures are crucial because a HIV infection is one of the least understood and most stigmatised diseases in Singapore. Even today, when everyone is a self-certified doctor thanks to WebMD, AfA still gets calls from the public, panicking that they might catch the virus because they had inadvertently shared a bowl of tau huay with a HIV-positive person.

Jing sighs: “After 30 years, we still get questions like that.”