Tag Archives: HIV

Day 1889: 21 Icons season 3 episode 11: Phindile Sithole-Spong

“The world has been taught for a long time that HIV looks like death. What I try to do is show people that HIV can be sexy and cute and funny… all the things that you don’t expect.” – Phindile Sithole-Spong

It’s 12 : 00 PM on day 1799 of my journey towards independence and I’ve managed to brush my teeth, pray, read Romans 6, publish my Disability of the Day feature, learn one new thing –Xmas and Rosh Hashana. Pomegranates appear on many Greek and Jewish tables during the holidays. At weddings and at New Years, Greeks break a pomegranate on the ground for good luck. – have breakfast and work on my future project.

Yesterday I watched season 3 episode 11 of 21 Icons featuring HIV Activist Phindile Sithole-Spong I love that Phindile has taken it upon herself to rebrand HIV .Watch “21 Icons : Phindile Sithole-Spong : Short Film” below:

Day 294

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The only way to change perception is through education – that’s what I learned today 🙂

It’s 9: 19 PM on day 294 of my journey towards independence and I’ve managed to brush my teeth, watch TV, feed myself sweet potatoes and salad for breakfast, read Max goes to camp, and misses some major excitement on Love That Max and A Trip We Won’t Soon Forget on Chasing Rainbows – the first blog post was about learning to let go of your children while the second one was a heart-warming post about a family on vacation – feed myself sweet potatoes and salad for lunch, submit one of my posts to be on Love That Max – I wanted to give the world a few pointers on how to treat disabled people – watch some more TV, tweet about my Clean Water For All Campaign – no luck – feed myself rice and curry for dinner and brush my teeth once more.

Yesterday I came across a tweet by Nicholas Kristof (@NickKristof) which read How should journalists cover Africa? When we cover genocides & poverty, are we part of the problem? http://nyti.ms/m9DKog and I couldn’t help but feel offended because although there is poverty and violence on this continent that is just part of what Africa is about a perfect example of this is what happened in our housekeeper’s neighborhood last week an HIV positive woman had fallen ill and died a day later in hospital which would have left her three-year-old daughter without adult supervision had a kind neighbor not taken her in until her next of kin could be notified. Do you share the world’s perception of Africa because you don’t know any different?

Are we connecting on Twitter? If not, say hi at http://twitter.com/Nisha360

If you’ve given to my cause or you can’t give now, please help me by sharing my cause with others. You can tweet about it like my friend Stan Faryna. This is the tweet he uses: @Nisha360 is a brave, smart young woman trying to make a better world for us all. Please help her do an amazing thing. http://bit.ly/hC7vOu

Stan’s very sweet for saying so, but feel free to write what reflects you best.

Thanks to all my friends out there who are helping me make my dream come true: to make a better world for all of us!

Day 93

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Celebrity-worship and hero-worship should not be confused. Yet we confuse them every day, and by doing so we come dangerously close to depriving ourselves of all real models. We lose sight of the men and women who do not simply seem great because they are famous but are famous because they are great. We come closer and closer to degrading all fame into notoriety. – Daniel J. Boorstin

It’s 6: 35 PM on day 93 of my journey towards independence and I’ve managed to brush my teeth, feed myself Appam – bread made of rice batter – and beef curry for breakfast, tweet about my Clean Water For All Campaign for a few hours – no one has donated so far today but I did make the $25 donation on behalf of the person that sent me money via PayPal yesterday – I wanted to get the money out of my account and into my campaign ASAP so as to avoid even the appearance of impropriety – feed myself myself Batura – deep fried bread – for lunch, help my brother make Custard – every time he tested the mixture he had the same thing to say needs more sugar LOL 🙂 – attempt to get myself off the wheelchair and onto the bed – I love my mom but every time she sees me struggling to do something she just comes in and does it for me – it makes me feel so incompetent 🙁 – and exercise for 10 minutes – I should really buy my brother a gift of some sort thanks to him the exercise session didn’t long – he was on my mother’s back – quite literally – LOL 🙂

Yesterday while on Twitter I was excited to read of a man in Berlin who was cured of HIV by means of a stem cell transplant however, my excitement quickly turned to deep dismay when I realized that more people were taking about The Golden Globes then a man being cured of HIV don’t misunderstand what I’m trying to say I fully acknowledge that everybody has the right to freedom of speech and I would NEVER dream of infringing on that right all I’m trying to say is that with a right to say what you want to say comes a responsibility to say things that will make this world a better place. Is it just me or have people lost sight of what’s really important? 🙁

Day 79

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Everybody is HIV positive until proven otherwise – Unknown.

It’s 7: 40 PM on day 79 of my journey towards independence and I’ve managed to brush my teeth, feed myself Oats for breakfast, created a Jango account – I really recommend that website if your a music lover – it allows you to create radio station and only plays songs by your favourite artists – learn how to calculate Separable Differentials – it was so easy hopefully I’ll finish the chapter by tomorrow 🙂 – feed myself rice and curry for lunch and exercise for 30 minutes – my legs where so still today that they would go straight no matter how hard my mother pressed on them – no two days are the same I suppose hopefully tomorrow my legs will be a lot more cooperative 🙂

Approximately 5.7 million people in South Africa are living with HIV and although the rate of new infections has dropped there are still new diagnoses being made every day and today being World Aids Day I would like to make two things VERY clear – firstly, you CANNOT contract HIV through touching, hugging or kissing and secondly NOBODY who chooses to have unprotected sex is immune from contracting HIV – black, white or blue HIV does not discriminate. Do you know your status? 🙂