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Positively Fit began as a government funded, community driven, research project to investigate the impact of rehabilitation activities on the quality of life for persons living with HIV in the Greater Victoria Region of British Columbia, Canada. With 83 participants, and five participant researchers, Positively Fit grew into a community development process for persons living with HIV, based on a participatory action research framework. This transformation was accompanied by issues of power and control, the line between insiders and outsiders, and the realization that ‘participatory’ is a term with many different meanings to many different constituent groups. Within the participatory action research framework, persons living with HIV were encouraged to become active in their own lives in a way that was meaningful to them. The role of the Project was community ‘animation’ or to facilitate linkages between persons living with HIV and existing community resources, as well as to encourage the capacities of participants for self-determination. Positively Fit, when it was in the hands of the participants, attempted not to create new community services or programs. Instead, Positively Fit participants negotiated access to participate in a program of their own choice, in their own community or neighborhood. However, government, physician and the local hosting agency agendas interrupted this community development process.
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Hiebert et al. (1999) studied this question.