True blessing for human dignity

I SPENT the whole of last week preoccupied with the imminent outcome of the last examinations that the beneficiaries of my scholarship undertook for their final year.

This agitation and anxiety is a familiar phenomenon because I attach so much personal interest in their success that often I feel I can be a silent guiding angel to assist them in accomplishing their dreams.

The Lucky Mazibuko Scholarship, established in partnership with Rosebank College, is an important feature of my humble and simple life.

These young, intelligent South Africans, who mostly come from underprivileged backgrounds, carry my flag in terms of the dedication and sacrifice I have committed myself to because the work that I do in so far as HIV is concerned is intangible and unquantifiable.

Suffice to say that in more than a decade I and many other simple people like me have inspired and encouraged millions of our people to take more responsibility for their wellbeing, to live positively longer and most importantly to ensure that prevention, treatment, care and support remain priorities for all of us.

Through all these toiling years I have remained steadfast and committed to ensuring that all our people, especially the poverty-stricken, the children who are born with HIV have access to cheaper treatment, including antiretroviraltreatment.

Even when I fell sick, staring death in it's filthy, selfish and ugly face, I still refused to take antiretroviral treatment until it was accessible to every person living with HIV.

On three different occasions I was on the oxygen mask and in all these paralysingly painful times tears dropped constantly from my eyes when I realised the trauma, love and anguish I cause to my immediate family, to my medical adviser Dr Pupuma and to my hero and adopted father, the late Dr Aggrey Klaaste.

They ultimately understood, grudgingly, that this personal struggle to which I had dedicated myself was beyond my comfort, my privilege, my family, my happiness, my embarrassment and indeed my own life.

I felt that it was a travesty of justice that our people should be dying like flies when treatment could be made available to save their "cheap" lives and to ensure that they could lead a long, productive and meaningful life as we all deserve to.

At the time my own children were still very young.

It is a true blessing, therefore, that many healthy years later almost a million of our people are enjoying free, life-saving treatment, they have access to nutrition, care and support.

It seems like an enigmatic miracle today that the silent stigma and unfair discrimination that was the order of the day then is steadily being lifted from the battered shoulders of those who are less privileged than you and me.

It is a true blessing that the human dignity of more than six million people living with HIV is recognised and respected in all spheres of life.

It is a profound privilege and an immense honour to know that HIV-positive children can lead normal lives, play, laugh and go to school like all kids should.