24 HER VISION, Tuesday, December 1, 2015 HER VISION, Tuesday, December 1, 2015 45

Jacquelyine Alesi, Director of Editor’s Uganda Network of Young People Living with HIV (UNYPA). Alesi discovered her HIV status in 2003, when she was aged 17 and still letter in school. She then started advocacy work in 2006. She has done this through her organisation, Uganda Network of Young People Living with HIV (UNYPA). Through UNYPA, Alesi hosts beauty pageants dubbed Y+ to fight Women still stigma and discrimination against young people living with HIV in Uganda. “It is a campaign that aims at viewing those living with HIV as people with vulnerable to normal lives as well,” Alesi says. She represents young people on the National Forum of People Living with HIV Networks in Uganda. Alesi is also the HIV infection omen in Special Youth Observer to the UNAIDS Lancet commission on global health and the focal person for the ATHENA Network in Uganda. Alesi envisions a As we commemorate the World AIDS W Uganda where people living with HIV are not stigmatised and consequently a Day today, we should note that women the battle Uganda free of HIV. and young girls are still vulnerable to Dr. Sabrina Kitaka,senior lecturer at HIV infection. This is because in many Makerere University, pediatrician and of our cultures, women take a lower adolescent Health specialist at Mulago hospital. status in male-female relationships. Initially, adolescents competed with adults Women are always told to do whatever to get information on sexuality, counselling it takes to make their partners happy and testing for HIV from clinics. This and thus, maintain their relationships. against HIV informed the problem statement of Dr. Kitaka’s research. She wrote a thesis on In addition to this, many women adolescent health during her medical are not economically empowered IN UGANDA’S BATTLE AGAINST HIV, A COUPLE OF WOMEN ACTIVISTS, training in infectious diseases at Makerere and in most cases depend on their University in 2003. The thesis exposed a partners for survival. As a result, in POLICYMAKERS, LEADERS AND HEALTH WORKERS HAVE PLAYED A KEY ROLE. hitherto unknown face of HIV. As a result, several HIV clinics were set up to address many relationships, women cannot do Jacquiline Emodek BRINGS YOU THE FEMALE NAMES THAT HAVE BEEN the young people’s challenges such as counselling, screening for sexually anything to protect themselves from transmitted infections, treatment and getting answers to HIV-related questions. HIV infection, even if they know what SYNONYMOUS WITH THE FIGHT AGAINST HIV/AIDS Dr. Jacqueline Balungi, the manager of medical care at Baylor College of Medicine, the pioneer HIV clinic for adolescents at Mulago Hospital, says Kitaka they need to do, for fear of annoying is her mentor. Apart from advocating youth-friendly services in health centres, their partners. For example, many Dr. Catherine Watson, Kitaka has emphasised the role parents and medics play as adolescents living Janet Museveni, the Founder of Straight Talk women cannot negotiate for condom with HIV grow into adulthood. First Lady of Uganda Foundation use even if they are not sure of the Mama Janet, as she is fondly called, After graduating from Stella Kentusi, executive director of National man’s sero status because they do is an active member of Organisation university, Watson worked as Forum of People Living with HIV/AIDS not want the man to think that the of African First Ladies Against HIV/ freelance journalist for BBC in Networks in Uganda (NAFOPHANU) AIDS. In Uganda, she is the champion East Africa from 1986 to 1993. woman does not trust him. As we fight After losing two brothers to HIV in 1987 and of the Prevention of Mother-to-Child She started the Straight Talk 1992, Stella Kentusi vowed to fight the disease. towards zero new HIV infections, zero Transmission of HIV. Mrs. Museveni is news paper, which focused “The drugs cost about sh4m then and I discrimination and zero AIDS-related also the founder of Uganda Women’s on providing a platform for watched my mother struggle to save her sons,” Effort to Save Orphans (UWESO) adolescents in Uganda to deaths, we need to empower our girls she recalls. Kentutsi vowed never to let other which cares for war-related and HIV/ frankly speak about sex, HIV/ and women to be more assertive on families go through similar ordeals. While still AIDS orphans in Uganda. In the battle AIDS and other sexually a student at Mengo Senior School, she started issues related to HIV. against HIV, she has championed transmitted diseases. Straight the Anti-AIDS Club in 1996. She says it was Her Vision Team different approaches such as encouraging the youth to use ICT in Talk brought out the hard truth that adolescents were curious shunned because her schoolmates assumed the fight. She is the patron of the Uganda Youth Forum, through about sex, but were not comfortable asking their parents and that members were HIV-positive. She changed which she has preached the message of abstinence from sex until guardians the questions they had. The Straight Talk Foundation the name of the club to the Life Club and Mengo SS became the first school marriage to the young people. On May 6, 2002, she was honoured also has radio programmes which run on various radio stations to train peer counsellors. After school, she joined NAFOPHANU in 2008 as with the pioneer Global AIDS Leadership Award for her role in the giving adolescents information on sexuality, HIV and other HAVE YOU GOT a project manager, before rising to executive director in 2011. NAFOPHANU fight against HIV/AIDS. sexually transmitted diseases. A QUESTION? A GIRL LIGHTS A CANDLE DURING THE WORLD AIDS DAY COMMEMORATION LAST YEAR has informed research. Beatrice Were, Founder of National Milly Katana, Veteran Activist EMAIL hervision@ Community of Women Living with Katana found out she was HIV- newvision.co.ug Tezla Lutaaya, Founder Philly Christine Ondoa, Director Dr. Lydia Mungerera, HIV/AIDS (NACWOLA) positive in 1992, when she was Lutaaya Cares Foundation General of Uganda Aids Commission Executive Director of Mama’s club At 22 and with two children, a fresh graduate and working She is the daughter of Philly “We cannot afford to When you talk about women in the battlefield Were’s husband succumbed to as a traffic controller. Since Dr. Noerine Kaleeba, Bongoley Lutaaya, the famous fold our sleeves in the against HIV, Mungerera stands tall. She brought AIDS in 1991. She says the fact having the virus was a death Founder TASO Uganda musician who disclosed his status HIV fight,” a New Vision attention to the female face of HIV and the that she was educated and had a sentence then, Katana built On June 6, 1986, Kaleeba received a in the late 1980s and went on headline read. During vulnerability of girls and women. Mungherera profession to fall back to is what a house in Mbuya, Kampala telegraph from the British Council that to engage in campaigns against a press briefing at the battled HIV head-on when she was diagnosed enabled her to maneuver through where she believed she would her husband Christopher, who was stigmatisation of people living Uganda Media Centre with the virus in South Africa in 1987. By the depressing moment. As a die from. Fortunately, there pursuing a master’s degree in the UK, with HIV. After the death of her last year, Ondoa stated 1996, she had reached end-stage of AIDS with result, Were believes educating was a breakthrough when was very ill with HIV. She travelled to father, Tezla and her siblings that despite the fact that dementia, tuberculosis and thrush. Fortunately girls is key in the fight against antiretroviral drugs became the UK to be by her husband’s bed at stayed out of the limelight until the country had reached for Mungerera, she had a strong family that HIV. In an interview by Actionaid, easy to access. Katana accepted Castle Hill Hospital, where he was being 2014, when she finally broke the tipping point in the stood by her. Her father later introduced her to someone working with the she said girls and young women her status but changed her treated. When Kaleeba returned with her her silence. Tezla returned to fight against HIV, we national guidance and empowerment network for people living with HIV/ who stay in school are less likely career from being an accountant to public health specialist and husband three months later, she was welcomed by stigma at Entebbe Uganda from Sweden where she was based and spearheaded could not sit back and AIDS. Mungerera has never looked back since. She has been a peer educator to contract the disease. “They are more likely to reject patriarchal even pursued a post-graduate diploma in managing HIV. She has Airport.“There were very many people who had simply gathered the Ugandan edition of last year’s International Candlelight relax lest we slid back. since 1998 and is a gender and human rights activist for girls and women norms and stand up for their rights, including the right not worked with the United Nations Development Programme, the to see how an HIV patient looked like. This annoyed me,” she says. memorial dedicated to those who succumbed to HIV/AIDS. In 2013, Uganda put more 173,000 people who were living with HIV. She worked for The Aids Support Organisation (TASO) as to have sex. They are less likely to have sex in exchange for International AIDS Alliance as country representative and was a Kaleeba, then the principal of Mulago School of Physiotherapy, made She also hosted the inaugural Bongoley Lutaaya Memorial Golf living with HIV on treatment, compared to 140,000 a clinician and advocate. While at TASO, she also founded Mama’s Club in money,” she said. With her interest in girls and young women, founding board member of the Global Aids Fund. Importantly, the decision to fight against the stigma that surrounded the disease. tournament at Entebbe Golf Club that same year. Tezla went who had contracted the virus that year. Ondoa 2004 to address the reproductive health rights of rural mothers living with Were co-founded NACWOLA in 1992. The organisation has 43 Katana appealed to then US president George Bush for help to In 1987, after her husband passed on, she founded The Aids Support on to found the Philly Lutaaya Cares Foundation, which helps was telling her troops not to surrender. Indeed the HIV. “The biggest lesson that I have learnt in the AIDS response from the branches and over 100,000 members in the country, with its developing countries struggling with the scourge. Fortunately, Organisation (TASO). TASO was a ray of hope for people living with orphans who have lost their parents to HIV/AIDS to acquire director general has continued in the struggle by past 15 years is that if we keep neglecting the social dynamics that relate to main beneficiaries being women living with HIV/AIDS and their Bush rolled out the US President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief HIV, it still is. Through the years, TASO has cared for over 300,000 vocational skills. Her aim is to ensure that her father’s efforts to being at the centre of campaigns like Protect My Ball, the epidemic, especially those that pose barriers for women and girls such as immediate families. (PEPFAR) programme, which has made anti-retroviral drugs more individuals living with HIV as well as reached out to their families. fight the stigma that surrounds the disease were not in vain. and Zip up 256, which aim at reducing HIV/AIDS gender-based violence and harmful gender norms, we will keep falling short easily accessible to people. infections to zero. in tackling the root cause of the epidemic,” Mungherera says. There are over 50,000 people living with HIV under the care of TASO.