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Radio blogger dies after a five-year-long battle with HIV/AidsOn 9 June 2009, the world said goodbye to Thembi Ngubane, a 24-year-old Aids activist who lost the battle against Aids by succumbing to multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis.
In South Africa, it has been said that one in every three women her age are estimated to contract the virus.
But being a young woman in today’s society, where in the face of HIV/Aids, women are often discriminated against for supposedly being far too promiscuous or are sexually violated, it is increasingly difficult to live as normal a life as possible when the virus carries the stigma it does.
Thembi was no ordinary girl. She showed defiance in the face of the virus and showed courage to listeners around the globe through an audio programme called Radio Diaries that reached millions.
Thembi contracted the virus from an ex-boyfriend in 2001, and at first was resistant to taking antiretrovirals.
However, after being encouraged to do so, and seeing the positive results, she began taking them every day.
Her road to fame was initiated two years later by an American radio producer, Joe Richman, who gave her a recorder to tape her story and the struggles, defiance, hope and truth about her disease as a means of debunking all the myths that led to discriminatory behaviour from people who were ill informed about HIV/Aids.
In that first year, Thembi recorded 50 hours of interviews with her friends and family.
The day she revealed her status to her father was the day Richman felt compelled to edit her story for National Public Radio in the United States. Her story first aired on her 21st birthday. For many in the western culture, a 21st birthday is a rite of passage and for Thembi it was the day she became the voice of a young woman facing one of the greatest social and economic challenges in this century.
It was not long after that Radio Diaries took to the airways of countries such as Canada, Australia, Europe and of course, the African continent. Her story reached over 50
million people. She became an icon of the airwaves as she fought HIV/Aids and soon after was travelling around the States speaking to all who would listen: school children, celebrities, government officials and HIV-positive teenagers. In 2007, she became an Ambassador of the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) and spoke at the Youth G-7 Conference, and was also the focus of an Indian documentary.
Thembi also attended the XVII International Aids Conference in Mexico last year where she addressed over 8 000 delegates about her story. Yearning to return to her roots, Thembi knew she had a vital role to play in disseminating information and facts surrounding the virus to people her own age, and in a country that still was in the throes of trying to shake off the effects of discrimination and stigmatism.
“Finding the courage to speak out in South Africa is the most important thing I have done,” Thembi said. “Young people in my country need someone they can relate to, someone who is just like them, to spell it out to them. Speaking out is the real cure to HIV/Aids.”
It was not enough to tell her story in English in South Africa. Two years ago, “Thembi’s Diary” was aired on community radio stations throughout South Africa in both Zulu and Xhosa and she went from schools both junior and high schools, to universities, to community clinics and to Constitution Hill where she told her story. It was in that same year that Thembi addressed the South African Parliament.
With an attitude that was far beyond her years, she told the South African government officials to accept the fact that Aids existed and that the drive behind such disease comes from stigma, that there was a vital need to change people’s perspectives. “If people can change their attitude, and how they think about HIV, then Aids will be curable even without a cure,” she said.
In the last few months of her life, Thembi struggled with TB, but carried on with her work. She went on television programmes such as Imagine Africa, which is an Aids reality television show broadcast across Africa and she and her current boyfriend, Melikhaya, who is also HIV positive, contributed to loveLife (one of South Africa’s youth programmes) for HIV prevention and awareness.
Thembi’s passing has left her family devastated. She has left behind her four-year-old daughter, Onwabo. In honour of her mother, Radio Diaries has set up a fund for the child to ensure that she is well cared for. While Thembi’s silence is what we hear on the radio, she has left her footprint among the many others who are bravely marching forward to provide us with enlightenment about the virus and how it impacts all of us and how we each have a role to play in this war of significant social and economic proportions.
For anyone interested in spreading Thembi’s story, visit www.radiodiaries.org
