Sunday Times (Johannesburg) - May 21, 2006
Bienne Huisman

Since discovering his status, Anderson, 34, a Cape Town-based TV producer, has made 29 Aids-awareness commercials, co-founded the human development consultancy LifeLab, and chaired the Sizwe Sonke Quilting Project of South Africa, aimed at creating Aids awareness and care among children.

He has participated in Aids campaigns, and his photo was on a massive billboard next to the N2 freeway outside Cape Town.

Speaking from the apartment he shares with his partner, Roger Maitland, who is HIV-negative, Anderson relived the night that changed his life.

He had just returned from a film shoot in the Kruger National Park and thought his flu-like symptoms were caused by malaria or tick-bite fever. After these diseases were ruled out, Anderson's doctor suggested an Aids test and he agreed.

"A week after the test, [the doctor] invited my partner and me to dinner. I thought nothing of it. I mean, the world was my oyster, I was in love and in a monogamous relationship," said Anderson. "But when I arrived at [the doctor's] house she didn't say anything. I could see in her eyes."

Further tests revealed that his then partner was also HIV-positive.

"We were just sobbing," Anderson remembered. "I recall to this day [the doctor's] answer when I asked how long I had to live. 'One, two or maybe five years, I really couldn't tell you,' she said."

After a harrowing two weeks the then 27-year-old accepted his HIV-positive status as a new challenge.

"I had to come to terms with death. I realised we're all going to die. Gradually the gift of Aids made me aware of what's going on in this country and how I can make a difference."

Anderson soon delivered his first educational speech to students at the Cape Technikon.

"I was nervous as all hell. I've never been a public speaker, but it just came naturally," he said.

Four years ago he founded LifeLab with Maitland. LifeLab provides wellness and training programmes for employees.

"We all get given a deck of cards in life; we get good and bad cards. Even a bad hand can win," Anderson said. "At LifeLab we believe in the potential of humankind. Through adversity blooms new possibilities; it's about exploring your path to purpose."

Brett's letter to the Sunday Times:

I am your average 34-year-old South African, Capetonian through and through. I dreamed as an eager young 27-year-old, back in 1999, of being one of the first South Africans to win an Oscar. Caught in the glamour of the television industry, a young star in the making, so I thought. The world was my oyster. I was involved in my first ever relationship, in love, and monogamous.

I was your average South African in many ways, believing, pretty much like everyone else, that it wouldn't happen to me. Aids only happened to other people - despite living in the most infected country in the world, and not knowing my own status or that of my partner. Never did I think I would become a statistic.

You can imagine my shock at learning that I was HIV-positive.

This was my wake-up call. I realised in that moment that I might not even make 30. There was still so much I wanted to do with my life. The virus showed me how to appreciate what I have in every moment. The experience awakened a possibility that I, too, could play a part in inspiring others to care enough about their own lives not to put themselves at risk. To appreciate how precious this life can be.

The irony is that the message is out! For the most part, people know how to protect themselves, yet we still see the fastest growing infection rate.

If there has been any lesson or gift that I've got from living with my virus, it's to appreciate every day that I'm still alive. What I am talking about is a deep sense of gratitude; those moments when you have a strong sense of the magnificence of being alive, those moments when just that is enough.

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