HIV/AIDS campaigner honoured for courage

A leading Tanzanian campaigner for people living with HIV/AIDS has been selected as one of four winners of the Africa Prize for Leadership, to be awarded by the US-based Hunger Project on 13 October. Amelia Jacob, who is herself living with HIV, "has demonstrated the courage to speak out publicly on this issue", thereby helping others to cope, the project stated on Wednesday, 3 October.

Jacob and the three other winners were "some of the most bold and committed leaders on the African continent dedicated to stopping the spread of HIV/AIDS", according to the organisation, which works to help local people in Africa, Asia and Latin America to use their own skills and resources to build self-reliance.

AIDS was turning back the clock on development in Africa and threatening political stability, erasing decades of progress in human development - despite experts' predictions that we have seen only 10 percent of the illnesses and deaths that this epidemic will bring, according to the president of Hunger Project, Joan Holmes. "As a woman in a society where women are not seen as equals to men... Jacob's tremendous courage has empowered others living with HIV/AIDS to come forth and speak out," she added.

Having being diagnosed with HIV in 1993, Jacob founded the organisation Service, Health and Development for People Living Positively with HIV/AIDS (SHDEPHA+) to educate people, advocate for the rights of people living with the disease, and provide them with a safe space for them to discuss their concerns. She has written a training manual, which focuses on the medical, social and psychological needs of people living with HIV/AIDS - available in both English and Swahili. Jacob has also started training people with the disease on how to live a positive life.

The other prize-winners in its Africa Prize for Leadership, which it likens to a "Nobel Prize for Africa", include: Bishop Dennis de Jong, Zambia; Hiwot HIV/AIDS Prevention, Care and Support Organisation (HAPSCO), in Ethiopia; and Padare Enkundleni Men's Forum on Gender in Zimbabwe. [for further details, go to: www.thp.org] The 13 October prize-giving ceremony in New York, USA, is scheduled to have a keynote address by President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, the only country in which the incidence of the disease has been reduced over time.