After her husband died of AIDS in 2003 and she herself tested HIV positive, D. Padmavathy, then 27, was so beset by the hostility of her inlaws in the village that she went to Chennai, 150 kilometres away. There she sought out an organisation called Positive Women Network (PWN).

Padmavathy was especially struck by the fact that PWN's founder and president, Kousalya Periasamy, had a story startlingly similar to her own.

Kousalya was just 20 in 1995, and three months into an arranged marriage, when she discovered that her husband was HIV-positive. Confused and knowing little about the disease, she moved away to her grandmother's place. She discovered she was HIV-positive too and shortly learnt of her husband's death.

She soon found work in Chennai, with a doctor who treated AIDS patients. "I finally found independence and a purpose in life, since I was helping patients," recalls the slim, soft-spoken Kousalya, habitually pausing between her clear Tamil sentences. She grew close to four other HIV-positive women widowed by AIDS. They met often and discussed the many problems they faced.

"The worst problem was misinformation," says Kousalya. They later presented these facts at a conference on HIV. "But amid all those experts, nobody listened to us," recalls Kousalya, who'd studied up to Year 12.

"We knew little then. We only knew how to weep. But we also learnt that we had to organise ourselves to be heard."

Kousalya rallied 16 more HIVpositive women together and registered PWN in October 1998. Their initial activities focused on obtaining medical treatment and jobs for affected women who had no support.

PWN's first break came quickly: an assignment to identify HIV-positive women in five districts. Today PWN, which has 17,000 members - a figure that is growing in its 13 stateunits across India - is largely funded by similar field projects.

Kousalya spends half her time travelling and ensuring these and other activities - awareness-raising and lobbying authorities, counselling, providing treatment and legal aid, and PWN's many employment schemes - are done with both heart and mind.

Meanwhile, one lady, now a mature and busy 34-year-old, recalls the day she stepped tentatively into PWN's Chennai office.

"I met Kousalya and the other women there and they've since been my family," says D. Padmavathy.

As president of PWN's Tamil Nadu state unit for the past three years, Padmavathy has also grown in confidence and skills, having helped rehabilitate innumerable women like herself - just the way her mentor Kousalya had envisioned.