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South African HIV/AIDS Educator and Activist Monalisa Ngqisha

Monalisa Ngqisha with South Carolina activist Joseph Duffield during a Global AIDS Alliance speaker tour. (© David Bryden/GAA)

Monalisa Ngqisha first became involved in political activism as a student during the struggle against apartheid. In later years, she faced emotional and physical abuse at the hands of her brother and her boyfriend—experiences that shaped her understanding of women's vulnerability to violence and HIV.  After learning that her own mother was HIV-positive and had faced enormous discrimination, Monalisa became involved in AIDS activism.

Today Monalisa is a committed activist and leader, representing one of the world's leading organizations of people affected by HIV/AIDS, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC). She is a full-time Treatment Literacy Practitioner, responsible for educating TAC members about HIV/AIDS treatment, and serves as Acting Provincial Organizer for the Eastern Cape. She regularly represents TAC in local, regional, and international forums, and is currently assisting with securing community input on the implementation of South Africa's national plan on HIV/AIDS.

As Monalisa explains, her work on women's rights and gender has become a priority because "domestic violence, sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, and rape are the daily realities we face as women in our community."

Click here for a slideshow of Monalisa's moving personal story.

Click here for to read the blog from GAA's speaker tour featuring Monalisa.

Other Global AIDS Activists

Click here for a video of African AIDS activists joined ACT UP-Paris to protest Abbott Laboratories withdrawing Kaletra and other essential drugs from Thailand.

Click here for an interview with Dr. Gao Yaojie, an internationally honored 80-year-old AIDS activist and winner of the 2007 Vital Voices Global Partnership Leadership Award.

Please visit our Multimedia page for more videos of global AIDS activism.

GAA's Activist Training Conference

In September 2003, the Global AIDS Alliance convened 300 activists from over 30 states for a three-day conference to learn more about grassroots advocacy and develop strategies to ensure that US policymakers make a fair-share contribution to fighting global AIDS.  Held in Washington, DC, the conference featured a keynote address by then UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa Stephen Lewis, and included a day of lobbying on Capitol Hill. 

Click here for a video of Stephen Lewis's speech produced by Kaisernetwork.org.

During the conference, GAA also produced a video called Daring to Care, which highlights the importance of grassroots activism in the fight against AIDS.

Click here to play an MPEG version of the Daring to Care video.
Click here to play a Windows media version of Daring to Care.