February 8, 2018
AVAC is delighted to announce the 2018 AVAC Advocacy Fellows—the ninth class of Fellows! Please join us in congratulating these seven talented advocates.
The 2018 Advocacy Fellows were selected from a pool of over 125 applicants from over 26 countries across the globe. We thank all of the applicants and their proposed host organizations for the time and effort put into this process. We’re also grateful to the independent review committee of advocates, scientists and former Fellows and Hosts who guided our decision-making.
The 2018 Advocacy Fellows are:
- Bridget Jjuuko Ndagaano at Naguru Teenage Center, Uganda
- Consolata Achieng Opiyo at ICW-Kenya, Kenya
- Deloune Matongo at GALZ, Zimbabwe
- Lilian Benjamin Mwakyosi at Tanzania Youth Alliance, Tanzania
- Neliswa Nkwali at Treatment Action Campaign, South Africa
- Ulanda Mtamba at Advancing Girls Education in Africa, Malawi
- William Rashidi at Centre for the Right to Health, Nigeria
The 2018 Fellows’ year begins in April against a backdrop of promise and challenge. Long-acting injectable PrEP and vaccines are both in large-scale trials. Rates of new HIV diagnoses are falling in some places, and not in others. Key primary interventions, like VMMC, compete for funding in the context of finite country budgets; as does programming for newer strategies, like PrEP.
The 2018 Fellows join a fantastic group of 56 current Advocacy Fellows and Alumni from eight sub-Saharan African countries and China who have participated in the program since its inception in 2010. Please visit the Advocacy Fellows page to learn more about the new Fellows’ planned work for the year. We hope you’ll find ways to collaborate with them in 2018 and beyond.
A Call for Applications for the 2019 Fellows Program will be announced this June with an application deadline in August. If you would like to be notified of the 2019 Call for Applications or have any questions, please email us at fellows@avac.org.