Sunday Times (Johannesburg) - May 14, 2006
Thabo Sephuma

I am a 26-year-old South African male, born in rural Limpopo, and I am an "HIV/Aids youth agent/activist".

When I first heard of HIV, I thought it was something that would pass in no time. But as the years went by, ordinary and prominent people died.

HIV caught my serious attention when I moved to Alexandra township [Johannesburg], where I witnessed people dying. I also saw people with HIV living normal and healthy lives.

I joined Alex FM. That's where I developed an interest in being an HIV/Aids agent. This happened after I met a young woman Aids activist who is living with HIV. That changed my mind and life.

I used to be ignorant, in denial and even resistant to talk about HIV and Aids. When I met this woman I was at a stage of my youth where I did not want to hear or talk about HIV/Aids. Come on, I still wanted to experience my love life to the fullest, taste every possible fruit I could lay my hands on. You know the myth and peer pressure that a man should have as many girls as possible to demonstrate his manhood.

I knew little about HIV. I believed that a person with the virus was dying and that you could always see they weren't healthy. I never thought I would meet someone living with HIV.

This woman was like an angel. We started by just talking about life in Alex in general. Unwittingly, I went on and on about HIV, how people were careless with their lives and you could see when someone was infected. She allowed me to let out all my ignorance. I reached a stage were I stopped and said to her: "What do you think? What is your view?"

She asked if I had ever met anyone with HIV. She talked me through the facts. In my mind I was still saying: "Who cares?"

She later paused. There she was with eyes full of tears. I was shocked because we were laughing a moment before . She said: "Can I tell you something? I am HIV-positive."

Oh my God. I felt like I could just disappear, vanish, but I could not. I was scared - and horrified that I had said bad things about HIV in front of someone living with it. I thought: "Maybe I hurt her with all my comments."

She said: "I am disappointed in you. You are a radio personality who can shape our community for the fight against HIV. Young people in the community see you as a figure they would like to follow. With your ignorance, this community is as lost as you.

"But you still have the opportunity to change and plough positively back into your community. There is life even when one has HIV."

To me, she looked as healthy, as beautiful as ever. I would never have thought she was living with HIV. She said that anyone could get HIV and it did not mean that person had been careless. She explained HIV in a very simple and realistic way.

The community should not stigmatise or discriminate against people who are HIV-positive. This dies not help in the fight against Aids but rather increases the rate of infection and premature deaths.

I left radio to become an "agent for change". I joined the [HIV/Aids activists] Treatment Action Campaign in Gauteng.

The other person who inspired me was DJ Khabzela. Before I joined Alex FM, I used to listen to Khaba [on YFM]. I was fortunate to meet him soon after I became a radio presenter.

When I was with the TAC, I received a call from Khabzela. It happened after it was publicly disclosed that he was living with HIV and I wrote a letter of encouragement to him.

He called to ask if I could visit him. I went to his house the next day. We spoke of many things - radio, life - and, most importantly, he encouraged me to become involved in youth development .

He wanted to know whether I would be interested in joining him, once he recovered, in standing up against HIV and raising awareness.

He said that young people needed young people to inspire and encourage them to be concerned citizens.

He said HIV was real and we needed to be real when we responded to it. We should stop judging and pointing fingers. He said it was time we pulled out all the stops to fight HIV.

People, he believed, would support him and not judge him, and he wished that all the support he was getting could be extended to all people living with and affected by HIV. That should be one of our steps towards an effective response to this disease.

I wish Khabzela was still alive so that I could share with him the work I am doing.

When I think of him, and the woman activist, I gain courage to continue to do well. They tested my humanity.

The knowledge I have gained from them - and from working with and meeting people like Lucky Mazibuko, the late Nkosi Johnson, Edwin Cameron, Zackie Achmat, the late Edward Mabunda and many others - has fuelled my enthusiasm for HIV/AIDS work and other community work.

I realise that young people need a youthful agent to inform and educate them, to care, love and support them, and to lobby for the health rights of people living with HIV, like getting medical attention from our own government. And to encourage young people to engage themselves in fighting this terrible disease.

The battle against HIV/AIDS will be won only by millions of initiatives at grassroots level. Some will be more effective than others, but every little effort will count. We must build a strong and caring ethic, and feelings of fellowship, among all people.

Ignorance, isolation and stigmatisation of and discrimination against people living with HIV/Aids will cause us to lose a substantial number of economically active people, as well as the leaders of the future generation.

That means investment will be lost. At some time the epidemic will intrude on all our lives.

Sephuma is an Aids activist living in Geneva, Switzerland

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