The sessions cover topics like transmission and prevention, understanding lab results and the benefits and side effects of available medications. Milano, who was diagnosed when he was 25 and has been living with the disease for 34 years, provides advice from his own experience, dismantles jargon and, most importantly, stamps out misinformation.

“It gave my boyfriend an extra year of life,” Milano tells me. “Is that good enough? Is living til 26 good enough?”

This is why Milano and ACRIA advocate so strongly for community-based programs that allow educators to take the time to talk with people living with HIV. This isn’t a widespread approach, or a new one. “If a young person today with HIV wants information, where do they go?” asks Milano me during a class. “The internet. Right. And we all know how reliable the internet is. We used to have community workshops, face-to-face. No one does that anymore.” Apart from ACRIA.

Once a month since May 2014, Milano has been leading a community-based workshop at the ACRIA’s headquarters, in an art-filled office just west of Times Square, New York. The series of six classes is called “Living with HIV,” (or, colloquially, “HIV 101”) and its goal - which Milano believes no other organisation meets - is to answer the question, “I’ve just tested positive. Now what?”

This World AIDS Day, VICE is exploring the state of HIV around the globe.Watch our special report, “Countdown to Zero,” tonight on HBO at 9 PM, and to get involved visit red.org and shop (RED).

Finding a cure isn’t something he always believed in, though—especially before organizations like ACRIA existed. But by 1995 he was resolutely hopeful. That year, he wrote in an article for POZ magazine, “If it’s childish to work for a cure, I’ll never grow up.”

This World AIDS Day, VICE is exploring the state of HIV around the globe.Watch our special report, “Countdown to Zero,” tonight on HBO at 9 PM, and to get involved visit red.org and shop (RED).