I can't let go just yet
By Ben Eveslage
Each recollection reminds me why I once poured so much of my life into a cause greater than my own ambitions, and how that devotion carries a special kind of heartbreak.
“Why do you do this work? What motivates you to continue? What’s next?”
I asked these questions to over 100 people on the frontlines of the HIV response across seven African countries. I wanted to understand the human story of this unfinished fight – now defined by abrupt cuts, terminated programs, and the people who continue holding the line.
Perhaps by asking these questions to others, it would help me make sense of them for myself at a time when my own career in international development was being upended.
Jacklain had injected drugs for 30 years. He contracted HIV, served time in prison, and was once told he wouldn’t live long enough to see freedom. Now, with an undetectable viral load, he still battles hepatitis but remains determined. When I visited him in Mauritius, his mother carried in coffee and tea as he pointed to a framed photo of his younger self – before injecting, before HIV, before prison. “I share my story,” he said, “so the younger ones can learn.”
In Rwanda, “Jeanne” survived genocide and was among the first to access HIV treatment. We spoke for hours in a clinic office as she recounted her life of survival and giving back, finally concluding, “I became strong so that I could help others survive.”
In Ghana, “Afia,” a transgender woman who had led HIV prevention efforts in her community, welcomed me into her home. Without work now, she had taken in homeless LGBT youth who had been cast out by their families. “What can your people do to help us?” she asked, desperation softening into a fragile hope. I realized then that taking a photo and telling a story might never feel like enough.
Photography, I’ve learned, is not so different from working in international development. Both can bring you intimately close to the lived realities of others and—if you allow it—teach you something about humanity as a whole. Both also, they held a mirror to my own reflection, revealing blind spots and contradictions, exposing how good intentions can coexist with privilege and dependence.
Back in February 2025 during the US foreign aid freeze, I started asking myself the same questions I would eventually ask many others. After a decade supporting global HIV programs around the clock, momentum didn’t allow me to simply stop when stop-work orders were issued.
I started by writing – a stream of consciousness that filled blank pages – braiding my origin in this line of work with ongoing rapids of funding cuts and lay-offs. I wrote with the expectation that my days were also numbered, either by the lingering threat of termination notice or deciding for myself to let go and move on. As I examined the flow of my emotions while writing, I could feel the force that such loss and pain imbued. However, like a crack in an oil pipeline, the uniform unbroken stream was an optical illusion; felt powerfully but seen as solid as glass. Perhaps, I was too close. I couldn’t perceive its direction, where it’s coming from, where it’s heading.
I wrote...
For the first time in ages, I allowed myself to revisit the flash points of my career, moments lodged not only in my memory but in my body, like knots of tension that persist long after the mind moves on. Each recollection reminds me why I once poured so much of my life into a cause greater than my own ambitions, and how that devotion carries a special kind of heartbreak.
I poured it all out. Pages were filled with my most intimate details, from coming out of the closet, to experiencing sexual abuse, and to how I entered this work and built a career. But the journey was so much more than just work, for me it was about turning personal suffering into something beautiful. And we did create beautiful things. Our team designed a telehealth approach reaching impact in 45 countries, bridging stigma and distance through digital tools that helped people access HIV services discreetly. But after February, much of that work—and our team—was gone.
I concluded...
As these dramatic thoughts swirl, I laugh at the irony. I remain employed, unlike my team and so many others. I see my colleagues taking bold moves after receiving termination notice. They teach me that I still have agency. So, the question becomes: “Where do I stand in my own story?”
Titled Standing among others’ stories (and not published anywhere, yet) was a nod to a truth I had been circling for years – I built a career supporting global HIV programs, though I was not living with HIV. I didn’t even look like most people we supported in our programs. It was always about connecting with other people – their stories of struggle and resilience that I wove into my own story and identity. Perhaps it made me feel a bit less helpless, and allowed me to find purpose in the pain.
By June 2025, I packed my cameras and left. Four months, seven countries, and more than 100 interviews later, I returned home carrying the weight of countless stories. I had accepted every invitation, every home visit, every chance to listen. And somewhere between the shutter clicks and the silences, I began finding a new clarity about myself, my work, and what it means to let go, or not.
So, why do I do this work? Perhaps it was to rewrite my own story—to stand in solidarity with my younger self, scared and alone, and in doing so, help others find light in the same darkness.
What motivates me to continue? To stay grounded in the people who make humanity worth fighting for, and weave new stories into my own and a hope that it will help me understand not just the world, but myself, a little more clearly.
What’s next? Maybe that’s not the point. The work continues—the stories, the people, the fragile hope that keeps us connected. And so, for now, I keep going, holding the line…
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