Clever Chilende

Clever is a Programs Manager with the Treatment Advocacy and Literacy Campaign (TALC). He joined TALC as a volunteer in 2008 after spending many years as a banker and private business consultant, through which he developed an interest in advocacy. Before his Fellow’s project, he worked for several years on campaigns to end ARV shortages in Lusaka and to establish an ART center in Chazanga, a densely populated and rural area in Zambia’s Eastern Province.

Fellowship Focus
Clever’s project informed national VMMC policy, and he coordinated a project in budget monitoring and expenditure tracking in the health sector. He also worked to increase community participation in the health budgeting process and was directly involved in drafting Zambia’s Country Operating Plan for PEPFAR. He joined key national working groups and formed a civil society coalition on HIV prevention through which he influenced policy and programming.

In Their Own Words
I now realize that in order to be more effective in advocacy, there is a need to identify advocacy spaces and find your way to the decision-making table. At the same time, I have learned that to be effective in advocacy you need to build a strong coalition. This is because advocacy is in numbers.

Lucy Ghati

Lucy currently heads Kenya’s chapter of the International Community of Women Living with HIV, working to ensure that women’s rights are respected and promoted. She recently joined the Multistakeholder Task Team for UNAIDS to explore ways to enhance reporting on and funding for community-led HIV responses. After Lucy tested HIV positive in 2002, she mobilized communities to fight the pandemic. She left her teaching job in 2007 and joined NEPHAK, a not-for-profit organization governed by and for persons living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHAs) in Kenya, as a program officer. She also served as a community representative for the new TB vaccine working group of the Stop TB Partnership, and served on the gender technical working group of National AIDS Control Council (NACC), Kenya, as well as the ART for prevention working group of the National AIDS and STI Control Program (NASCOP).

Fellowship Focus
Lucy sensitized communities on the benefits of early ART initiation, resulting in demand creation for early treatment. She helped develop the Kenya PLHIV Manifesto, which was well received by Kenya’s Vice President.

In Their Own Words
I will continue deriving my motivation from the positive impact of HIV prevention research. I am optimistic that it will show a huge reduction in new HIV infection and quality life for those on treatment in the years to come.

Alice Kayongo

Alice is the Regional Policy and Advocacy Manager at AHF where she is involved in health policy and advocacy work in Lesotho, Malawi and East and West Africa broadly. She also leads a team of volunteers within a not-for-profit initiative called “We Rise and Prosper” (WRAP) with the aim of contributing toward poverty reduction, improved health outcomes and fairness in society. Alice is an activist and an active participant in the health, women’s and children’s rights civil society movement and development sector in Uganda and internationally. She is part of many successful social movements and coalitions in Uganda. At the time of her Fellowship, Alice was finalizing a campaign on “What’s preventing prevention of HIV/AIDS in Uganda?”.

Fellowship Focus
Alice’s objective was to influence policy on Treatment as Prevention. She led efforts to adopt a national treatment program based on universal access to HIV/AIDS treatment and education, to increase health funding for HIV/AIDS and intensify the fight against corruption, to attract and retain health workers evenly in all parts of the country and to implement a combination of interventions for HIV prevention such as VMMC, Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission and PrEP. Her coalition-building work solidified civil society’s role in influencing the allocation of hundreds of millions of dollars through PEPFAR’s Country Operational Plans and the Global Fund in Uganda and globally.

In Their Own Words
With greater political and financial support, the Treatment as Prevention approach can make a big difference.

Memory Makamba

Memory worked to bring serodiscordant couples into HIV prevention programs. To do this, she convinced civil society, policy makers and program implementers of their need. She also engaged PEPFAR in discussions around the need to increase funding for treatment and prevention scale-up, resulting in an additional $39 million for PMTCT, VMMC and treatment.

Fellowship Focus
Memory worked to bring serodiscordant couples into HIV prevention programs. To do this, she convinced civil society, policy makers and program implementers of their need. She also engaged PEPFAR in discussions around the need to increase funding for treatment and prevention scale-up, resulting in an additional $39 million for PMTCT, VMMC and treatment.

In Their Own Words
Although Zimbabwe is one of the HPTN 052 study sites, very few people outside the HIV prevention research are aware of the groundbreaking results that were released in 2011.

Chamunorwa Mashoko

Chamu monitors PEPFAR via the Community-Led Monitoring program. He also works on music with a band called Gwevedzi. His involvement in research dates back to 2002, when he joined the University of Zimbabwe-University of California San Francisco Research Collaboration as a community outreach worker. In 2007, working as a counselor in the HPTN 046 nevirapine study, he was reminded of women’s central role in HIV/AIDS, and was compelled to support these women. He joined the Microbicides Trials Network’s VOICE study team to help champion the development of a woman-controlled prevention method. Chamu recorded a song, “For You I Will”, advocating for combination prevention, particularly testing and voluntary medical male circumcision.

Fellowship Focus
Chamu initiated a strong combination prevention advocacy platform. He launched Zimbabwe’s HIV/AIDS Coalition, helped to draft the National Combination HIV Prevention Strategy and participated in the PEPFAR country operating plan, which resulted in an additional $39 million and more meaningful involvement of civil society in the PEPFAR process.

In Their Own Words
I challenged the National AIDS Council on accountability and transparency. The impact is so huge that NAC is now sharing information with the public. However, there is still a lot of advocacy that needs to be done.

Lydia Mulwanyi-Mukombe

Lydia currently works at UNFPA as a Senior Policy Advisor in the Uganda office. She has a wealth of experience in community health-related program planning and implementation, participatory monitoring and evaluation. At the time of her project, she had more than seven years’ experience working in non-governmental organizations and in partnership with regional and international agencies focused on adolescent sexual reproductive health, health rights awareness and advocacy and community engagement in health and research. Her advocacy experiences have been directed toward universal access to HIV treatment, increased funding for reproductive health supplies and the promotion and protection of the right to health in Uganda.

Fellowship Focus
Lydia documented an understanding of what prevention trial results mean for women—from tenofovir gel to hormonal contraceptive impact on HIV risk—and used that evidence to influence research and policy in Uganda and beyond. One of Lydia’s accomplishments was convening key consultative meetings of women from across Africa to deliberate on the issue of hormonal contraception and HIV risk. These convenings influenced the decision to conduct the ECHO trial and also influenced the conduct of the trial and post-trial decisions related to increasing method mix of HIV prevention, treatment and contraception for women.

In Their Own Words
The ECHO trial results were critical, for they pointed to the need for governments to provide contraceptive method mix for women, promote informed choice of contraceptive options and strengthen integration of contraceptive and HIV prevention services.

Bukelwa Sontshatsha

Bukelwa has been involved in the fight against HIV/AIDS for close to two decades, from volunteering in community-based support programs to coordinating multisectoral teams focused on HIV/AIDS prevention. She is especially passionate about ensuring that voices of persons living with HIV/AIDS are meaningfully represented at every level of decision-making. She previously worked as a health promotion officer for a local municipality, ran a support group for the Red Cross Children’s Hospital for parents and children who are HIV-positive and sat on the Community Advisory Board of the Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation, the board at Phakama Community Health Project and the St. Luke’s Hospice board.

Fellowship Focus
Bukelwa listened to and documented voices of PLHIV in South Africa in considering the feasibility of rolling out treatment as prevention there. Her perspectives helped to inform and influence policy and programming to ensure better service delivery for PLHIV in South Africa.

In Their Own Words
Treatment as prevention has always been on the South African agenda since the HPTN052 results were announced, but what was missing was inclusion of the voices and preferences of PLHIV in its implementation. Working with communities and advocates helps to lift their issues and positively impact programming. We should do more of it.

Jacqueline Wambui

Jacque is an HIV-positive activist who has long worked in the community and shared her story in order to encourage others to live positively. She currently represents Kenya as an alternate on the AfroCAB Treatment Access Partnership Community Advisory Board,leads Kenya’s Treatment CAB and serves as a member of the ECHO Trial Global Community Advisory Board (GCAG). She has a special interest in sexual and reproductive health for young HIV-positive women and girls and on advocating for their rights.

Fellowship Focus
Jacque made treatment as prevention part of the political landscape in the run-up to Kenya’s 2012 national elections and influenced the process of revising the national ART guidelines. An important win that came after her Fellowship is her successful advocacy for the use of dolutegravir among women of reproductive age.

In Their Own Words
Women living with HIV should be given the choice. They must be informed about the risks and benefits of the different ARV regimens, and then the women should decide what is best for them. We’re tired of decisions being made for us.

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