KINSHASA, December 11, 2008—It is impossible not to be moved by the story of Maguy Mfumu, a charming, 32 year-old Congolese, full of vitality. It began in 1998. At that time, Mfumu was a laboratory technician in a hospital on the outskirts of Kinshasa and wished to make a blood donation at the hospital where she worked. As a result of the donation, she discovered she was HIV-positive.
Distraught, Mfumu lost her taste for living and for two years stopped taking care of herself. Until the day she decided to fight back. “I said to myself, ‘it’s been two years since I discovered my HIV-positive status, and I’m still alive. Therefore, I can live for a long time and continue to be useful to my country’.”
Mfumu decided to share her story in an effort to contribute to the fight against HIV/AIDS and give hope to others living with the virus.
Today, as president of the Organization of Young Persons for Combating HIV/AIDS and Helping Orphans (OJVS), she gives speeches and interviews in the media to sensitize and warn people of the dangers of the disease.
“I created OJVS because I was appalled to discover my HIV-positive status,” Mfumu said. “In the health center where I worked, it was prohibited to inform a blood donor of a positive result. Everyone who tested positive therefore continued leading their lives as if everything was fine. So I resolved then to break the silence.”
“We are young people combating HIV/AIDS”
Mfumu started encouraging blood donors to come back and get information about their results. “I steered those with positive results toward the specialized screening centers for test confirmation and treatment,” she said. “I recommended to donors with negative test results to keep themselves safe and maintain their negative status.”
Assisted and comforted by Mfumu, donors testing positive returned to her for advice and to benefit from her experience. But, fearing stigmatization, they insisted on meeting her outside the hospital. After six months, Mfumu had enrolled 30 HIV positive people in a group. The group met in a donated meeting site and thus her association was born.
Since then, Mfumu has become well known for mobilizing the community by means of radio, television, magazines, and newspapers. Through the media, she shares her positive life experiences and the achievements of OJVS.
“Our aims are to sensitize and mobilize the community of young persons to keep themselves safe from STDs and HIV/AIDS, to encourage voluntary screening centers, to help those carrying the virus psychologically and socially, and strengthen the skills of persons living with HIV/AIDS,” she says.
She calls upon persons living with the virus to remain hopeful and continue working. “We are not different from others; we have skills to place at the disposal of the community. We should continue to hope, come out of hiding, and break the cycle of transmission.”
RSS