Helena Nangombe is a 27 year old young woman who has been living with HIV, standing as a strong survivor of sexual abuse. Helena is extremely ambitious and self-motivated as a youth advocate. She is a proud mother of an 8 year old son who is HIV negative. After the early death of her parents, she needed to withdraw from her education as there was no one to pay for her education. However this motivated her to contribute positively to her community volunteering to work with orphans and vulnerable children, tuberculosis patients and people living with HIV. Helena advocates for the rights of people living with HIV by volunteering as a focal person for the Namibia Women's Health Network and as a young women for the International Community of Women Living with HIV (ICW). Helena also blogs short stories around HIV and sexual and reproductive health and rights issues with advocates for youth. Helena's ambition is to build her capacity to train and empower her community and specifically work with young people to help them recognise their sexual and reproductive health and rights. Helena has recently been appointed as a member of the UNAIDS Dialogue Platform on the Rights of Women living with HIV and part of the Global Coalition on Women and AIDS (GCWA). I am from Namibia, Ondangwa.
Why Helena wants to be a part of A Girl Like Me: I want to be part of A Girl Like Me because I am a woman that suffers of many things like different kinds of violence and HIV. But still the woman who stands strong despite all she is going through, she cares, loves, supports. I know being part of A Girl Like Me will help many of us to find our positive way forward, believing in yourself and feeling that you have a family and to show the world that HIV has not taken anything away from us.
