My name is Talent Jumo and I work with the Young Women's Leadership Initiative (now Katswe Sistahood) based in Zimbabwe. Attending the UNAIDS Programme Coordinating meeting has been challenging and informative at the same time. Firstly, i am coming from a space where I have been asked so many questions if a young, black African woman from Southern Africa can really make an impact at the global level. I have been discouraged by those closest, but I believe that this struggle on HIV & AIDS is about me, my sister, my daughter and my mother, and hence when opportunities to sit at the table present, they should be embraced.
If I speak, my voice will be heard, better still, if I write, those that shall come after me shall read and sharpen their weapon to prepare further for this battle against women's oppression, HIV & AIDS, poverty, and other countless pathogies (both man-made and natural disasters).
I am not going to write about snow, which I am certainly experiencing for the first time, because that may not help my sisters that much (but maybe it may, if I inspire them enough to want to attend the next meeting). But I will dwell more on the deliberations of the day, as I experience them. The struggle continues for women and other marginalised groups. We surely will have to fight for our rights, for 'only the oppressed can free themselves from oppression, and in turn free their oppressors' {Paulo Freire- The Pedagogy of the Oppressed}
Talent Jumo
www.pepeta.org
you go girl
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