The Model Cities programme will work on a local level to help organisations such as Suslov’s by providing funding to strengthen the HIV response and services over a five-year period from 2020. Its primary aim is to help tackle and, ultimately, end HIV as a public health threat by 2030 in EECA.

Suslov’s organisation, which was set up in 2015, is Almaty’s leading community organisation providing HIV-related services to the city’s MSM and transgender communities. A lack of information and stigma are some of the biggest challenges they face, along with difficulties accessing the necessary medical services, says Suslov.

“I have a vivid memory of a client who had known his HIV status for many years, but had fallen prey to misinformation and conspiracy theories and started to believe that HIV was fake. And so he disengaged from medical care and stopped taking antiretroviral therapy,” he says.

“By the time he came to us, in 2018, the situation was critical. He went into surgery and had serious complications afterwards. We began working with him during his post-operative recovery, but by the time we had finally convinced him to go to therapy, he only lived for three more days. We still remember this loss.”

Organisations such as Suslov’s are helping increase HIV testing among Almaty’s MSM community, ensuring access to prevention programmes and providing hope and support through their peer groups. Suslov has worked with public organisations for more than 10 years and most recently worked specifically with the MSM community, which led him to set up his own organisation. “Stigma and discrimination are still the main obstacles to obtaining medical services,” says Suslov. “But, for the most part, 95% of the people who know their HIV status are on therapy and achieve viral suppression. The first step is to find and highlight the problem. There is a saying that as long as evil is not named, it can’t be defeated, so we need to start with this.

“I decided that my professional background, my experience and my knowledge would be useful in this area, and I put all my efforts, all my time and resources into it,” he says. “Alongside the stigma and discrimination aspect, one of the main obstacles is that people don’t want to be tested, because they don’t want to go to medical institutions.”

He hopes that the work his team is doing will continue to make a difference and change the outcomes for people in the MSM and transgender communities. “When I see the light in people’s eyes and hear testimonials of appreciation, this energy and gratitude is what gives us the strength to get up in the morning and do what we do,” he says.

People in Kazakhstan are slowly becoming more aware and accepting of how prevalent HIV is, he says. “The situation is becoming a little less tense. But, nevertheless, there is still a kind of stigma within the MSM community, and this is something that we are constantly working on.”

This article was originally published on theguardian.com as part of the RADIAN and Guardian Labs Changemakers campaign