Emma Tuahepa

Last updated
Emma Touny Waundjua Tuhepha
Personal details
Born (1974-12-11) 11 December 1974 (age 47)
Caprivi Region
NationalityNamibian
OccupationHIV/AIDS Activist

Emma Touny Waundjua Tuhepha (born 11 December 1974) is a Namibian HIV/AIDS activist. [1] In 1996, she was the first Namibian woman to state publicly that she was HIV-positive. [2] She became a high-profile activist for HIV/AIDS awareness and her efforts paid off, as anti-retroviral drugs soon arrived to treat Namibians with HIV/AIDS. [3] In 2001, she co-founded Lironga Eparu (learn to survive), a support group for those living with HIV which also participates in advocacy, awareness raising and policy development. [4] Tuahepa is now the National Coordinator of the Organisation. She is from the Caprivi Region and attended the Caprivi College of Education [5] before earning a Teaching Diploma at the Windhoek College of Education and taught briefly at Okuryangava Primary School. [3]

Related Research Articles

Namibia Country in Southern Africa

Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and east. Although it does not border Zimbabwe, less than 200 metres of the Botswanan right bank of the Zambezi River separates the two countries. Namibia gained independence from South Africa on 21 March 1990, following the Namibian War of Independence. Its capital and largest city is Windhoek. Namibia is a member state of the United Nations (UN), the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the African Union (AU) and the Commonwealth of Nations.

Annie Lennox Scottish singer-songwriter

Ann Lennox is a Scottish singer-songwriter, political activist and philanthropist. After achieving moderate success in the late 1970s as part of the new wave band the Tourists, she and fellow musician Dave Stewart went on to achieve international success in the 1980s as Eurythmics. Appearing in the 1983 music video for "Sweet Dreams " with orange cropped hair and wearing a man's business suit, the BBC states, "all eyes were on Annie Lennox, the singer whose powerful androgynous look defied the male gaze". Subsequent hits with Eurythmics include "There Must Be an Angel " and "Here Comes the Rain Again".

Rebekka Lynn Armstrong is an American HIV/AIDS activist and former model and bodybuilder. She was Playboy Playmate of the Month for September 1986. Eight years later, she was the first Playmate to publicly announce that she is HIV-positive.

Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation

The Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation (EGPAF) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to preventing pediatric HIV infection and eliminating pediatric AIDS through research, advocacy, and prevention and treatment programs. Founded in 1988, the organization works in 12 countries around the world.

HIV/AIDS in South Africa Health concern in South Africa

HIV/AIDS is one of the most serious health concerns in South Africa. The country has the highest number of people afflicted with HIV of any country, and the fourth-highest adult HIV prevalence rate, according to the 2019 United Nations statistics.

Raising Malawi Charity providing aid for orphans in Malawi

Raising Malawi is a charity non-profit organization that was founded by Madonna and Michael Berg in 2006. It is dedicated to helping with the extreme poverty and hardship endured by Malawi's one million orphans, primarily through health and education programming. Initially, the "Raising Malawi Academy for Girls" was to be constructed but following an audit by the Global Philanthropy Group, which questioned expenditure on salaries and benefits as well as the management capacity and culture, the charity's school headmistress resigned in October 2010 and the project was scrapped.

Gao Yaojie

Gao Yaojie is a Chinese gynecologist, academic, and AIDS activist in Zhengzhou, Henan province, China. Gao has been honored for her work by the United Nations and Western organizations, and had spent time under house arrest. Her split with the Chinese authority on the transmission and the seriousness of the AIDS epidemic in China hinders her further activities and resulted in her leaving for the United States in 2009. She is now living alone in uptown Manhattan, New York City.

Phyu Phyu Thin Burmese politician and activist

Phyu Phyu Thin is a Burmese politician and HIV/AIDS activist who served as a House of Representatives MP for Mingala Taungnyunt Township from 2012 until her removal from office in the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état.

Marvelyn Brown is an African-American author and AIDS activist. She is the founder of Marvelous Connections, an HIV/AIDS organization founded in 2006. She wrote the autobiography The Naked Truth: Young, Beautiful and (HIV) Positive, which tells her story as a young heterosexual woman living with HIV. She has delivered public speeches and made public appearances in the United States, Bermuda, Canada, Jamaica, Mexico, the Virgin Islands, South Africa, Tanzania, and Rwanda.

Elma Dienda Namibian politician and teacher

Elma Jane Dienda is a Namibian politician and teacher. Currently a member Democratic Turnhalle Alliance which she joined four years after her resignation from the CoD, Dienda was a member of the National Assembly of Namibia from taking CoD's final spot in 2004 until CoD did not receive enough votes for her re-election in 2009. She is of South African and Malawian descent.

Mary Fisher is an American political activist, artist and author. After contracting HIV from her second husband, she has become an outspoken HIV/AIDS-activist for the prevention, education and for the compassionate treatment of people with HIV and AIDS. She is particularly noted for speeches before two Republican Conventions: Houston in 1992 and San Diego in 1996. The 1992 speech has been hailed as “one of the best American speeches of the 20th Century”.

Helene D. Gayle

Helene D. Gayle, is an American doctor who is the CEO of The Chicago Community Trust, one of the nation's leading community foundations. For over 100 years, The Chicago Community Trust has mobilized people, ideas, organizations and resources to advance equity, opportunity and prosperity for all.

The health status of Namibia has increased steadily since independence, and the government does have focus on health in the country and seeks to make health service upgrades. As a guidance to achieve this goal, The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) and World Health Organization (WHO) recently published the report "Namibia: State of the Nation's Health: Findings from the Global Burden of Disease. The report backs the fact that Namibia has made steady progress in the last decades when it comes to general health and communicable diseases, but despite this progress, HIV/AIDS still is the major reason for low life expectancy in the country.

Linda Laubenstein American medical researcher

Linda Jane Laubenstein was an American physician and early HIV/AIDS researcher. She was among the first doctors in the United States to recognize the AIDS epidemic of the early 1980s; she co-authored the first article linking AIDS with Kaposi's sarcoma.

Jyoti Dhawale is an HIV activist, dedicated for the betterment of people living with HIV/AIDS across India and the world.

Piya Sorcar American social entrepreneur and researcher

Piya Sorcar is an American social entrepreneur and researcher. She is the founder and CEO of TeachAids, and is a lecturer at Stanford University.

Suniti Solomon was an Indian physician and microbiologist who pioneered AIDS research and prevention in India after having diagnosed the first Indian AIDS cases among the Chennai sex workers in 1986 along with her student Sellappan Nirmala. She founded the Y R Gaitonde Centre for AIDS Research and Education in Chennai. The Indian government conferred the National Women Bio-scientist Award on her. On 25 January 2017, the Government of India awarded her the Padma Shri for medicine for her contributions towards diagnosis and treatment of HIV.

Hydeia Broadbent is a United-States-based HIV/AIDS activist.

Prudence Nobantu Mabele South African activist (1971–2017)

Prudence Nobantu Mabele was a South African activist who advocated for the rights of women and children living with HIV/AIDS, and against gender-based violence. She was diagnosed with HIV/AIDS in 1990 and went public with her status in 1992. She set up the Positive Women's Network in 1996. She worked with UNAIDS and also qualified as a sangoma. She was the recipient of many awards, including the Felipa de Souza award in 1999. In 2004, she carried the Olympic flame. She died in 2017 and in her memory the International AIDS Society set up an annual prize for gender activists.

SethembisoPromise Mthembu is a South African human rights activist and researcher, best known for her work on HIV/AIDS and women's rights. One of the first women in South Africa to publicly share that she was living with HIV, Mthembu is a founder of the Gugu Dlamini Action Group, the Young Woman's Dialogue, and the Her Rights Initiative.

References

  1. "NID - Namibia Institute For Democracy". 2008. Archived from the original on 11 June 2011. Retrieved 12 January 2012.
  2. "Emma Tuhepha, "I didn't want her to appear in the newspapers ... the day she was born"". PlusNews . 26 January 2009. Retrieved 12 January 2012.
  3. 1 2 "Tuahepa Emma". My-Beautiful-Namibia.com. Archived from the original on 29 January 2013. Retrieved 12 January 2012.
  4. "Namibia - Community outreach services - Human Rights Development Initiative". www.hrdi.org.za. Retrieved 2019-07-29.
  5. Liswaniso, Michael (9 September 2011). "Madam Emma Tuahepa, I salute you". New Era . Retrieved 12 January 2012.[ permanent dead link ]