HIV/AIDS remains a global concern. International star and Zimbabwean playwright Danai Gurira is using her celebrity to battle for its elimination.



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A superhero on the big screen and now a possible superhero
in real life, actor and playwright, Danai Gurira, is making it her mission to
join the fight against HIV/AIDS.



She is known for playing General Okoye in one of last year’s
biggest films, Black Panther, which grossed over a billion dollars worldwide.



The famous Zimbabwean says the fight against the epidemic
has been evident in her life ever since she was a little girl.



Recently appointed a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador, she chats to FORBES AFRICA about her work.



READ MORE | <a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2019/02/18/danai-gurira-fully-feminine-and-fully-fierce%EF%BB%BF/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Danai Gurira: ‘Fully Feminine And Fully Fierce’ (opens in a new tab)">Danai Gurira: ‘Fully Feminine And Fully Fierce’</a>﻿



On December 3, 2018, a day after the Global Citizen Festival
where Gurira made an appearance as a co-host to rapturous applause from an
audience of 75,000 in Johannesburg, we meet her at an HIV clinic on the
outskirts of the city in a township called Tembisa. It’s a trial clinic called
Imbokodo for testing a combination of two experimental vaccines to prevent HIV.




At the clinic, Gurira meets with a group of women heading
it, to discuss and learn how the trials work. 



One of the women, dressed in a pink blouse, responsible for
creating the trial vaccine, talks to Gurira about their work. Maria Grazia Pau
is the Senior Director, Compound Development Team Leader, for the HIV vaccine
programs at Janssen.



&nbsp;Pau has over 18 years
of experience in the field of viral vectors.



“We have seen responses in the body systemically when we
check the blood but also we have checked other studies, and we do see responses
there,” she tells Gurira.



Everyone in the room pays attention.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“The composition is complex, we want to protect from many different types of HIV because there are so many traits everywhere,” Pau says.</blockquote>



“Right,” Gurira nods attentively.



“It is the answer to elimination,” Gurira says.



The group of women join in the conversation.



They may just be on a breakthrough to finding an HIV
vaccine.



The study is being conducted by the HIV Vaccine Trials
Network, Janssen Vaccines &amp; Prevention B.V., part of the Janssen
Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson &amp; Johnson, and all the participating
study clinics. 



These partners are working in collaboration with community
stakeholders to ensure this research is acceptable to the local community and
respectful of local cultures.



With 27 sites on the continent alone, they have clinics in
countries including Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique. 



Gurira has recently collaborated with them to help further
their research and spread awareness about the disease.



Gurira was born in the United States (US) and later moved to
Zimbabwe, when she was a young girl.



Growing up in Harare, she saw and heard a number of stories
relating to HIV that touched her deeply. 



The 1980s were a time when the disease had started spreading
globally.



“I can’t really extricate my upbringing from understanding
how this epidemic hit southern Africa and how it changed the tapestry of life,”
she says.



The stigma around the disease and how women were treated
were some of the issues that concerned her.



“Growing up, I witnessed how it was affecting, not only
cultural dynamics, but also exacerbating issues around gender dynamics and
various things that filled me with great passion,” she says.



“How women were dealing with a great amount of stigma in the
family; if HIV was in the homestead, the involvement of even in-laws and how
that was being interpreted –&nbsp; about faulting
a woman. [As well as] blame imposed upon women and the loss of a spouse and how
that would affect how a woman was treated post that time. So there were a lot
of things affecting me as I grew up and as I watched these things happen.”



&nbsp;It was those personal
experiences that shaped how she viewed HIV and the importance of eradicating
it.



It was later that she moved back to the US and pursued a
career in psychology and then a masters in Fine Arts.



How people perceived HIV there, was not what she expected.



“Coming to the US and seeing how the African was viewed as a statistic; I was seeing real people with real stories and experiences who were truly people who had aspirations and careers and had many things going for them that they were working towards.”



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At the time, antiretroviral (ARV) therapy had not yet been
introduced and there was no way to manage it.



“It was such a death sentence at the time,” she says.



“And to come to the US to find that what we were dealing
with in southern Africa was statistical, that also gave a great amount of need
to bridge that very unfortunate disconnect between the actual human experience
of it and the value of people who were being affected by this… and how they
were being viewed.”



While there, she connected with some of her friends who did
field work around the issue while she was more focused on her advocacy in the
field of arts.



She married her advocacy for HIV with her passion for the
arts.



Gurira began writing plays in an effort to use her strengths
as an actor, and tell stories about issues she felt strongly about.



She co-wrote and co-starred in In the Continuum, a play
about HIV/AIDS from the perspective of a married Zimbabwean woman.



With this play, her aim was to break away from the
“statistical component of how the African is viewed often”.



In December 2011, In the Continuum commemorated World AIDS
Day. 



Little did she know that was the beginning of her activism
against HIV/AIDS.



The ‘golden age’ of HIV science



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="411" height="603" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Danai4.png" alt="" class="wp-image-39618" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Danai4.png 411w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Danai4-300x440.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Danai4-204x300.png 204w" sizes="(max-width: 411px) 100vw, 411px" /><figcaption> Glenda Gray, a National Research Foundation A-rated scientist, CEO and President of the South African Medical Research Council. Picture: Motlabana Monnakgotla</figcaption></figure></div>



The same year, a woman in South Africa by the name of Dr
Glenda Gray, was elected into the US Institute of Medicine, National Academies,
as a foreign associate for her research on preventing HIV-infected mothers from
passing the virus to their newborns.



She is a National Research Foundation A-rated scientist, CEO
and President of the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC).



She is a qualified paediatrician and clinician and
co-founder of the internationally recognized Perinatal HIV Research Unit in
Soweto, South Africa.







In December 2018 on the same day of the interview, Gray and
Gurira meet at the Imbokodo clinic.



Gray is one of the leaders of the trials at the clinic. 



“We are in a golden age in terms of HIV science and hopeful about making huge advancements in HIV vaccine developments,” she says.



Much like Gurira, Gray was also confronted with the epidemic
at a young age. 



“As a young doctor, I saw HIV explode in my face and imagine
if we can, in my medical career, go from the beginning of an epidemic to the
end of an epidemic; that would be an amazing feat to be part of the team that
finds an HIV vaccine.” 



What Gray has endeavored to do is to find an HIV vaccine
that protects women and in the future, children and adolescents as well.



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“We definitely are not going to be able to treat ourselves
out of this epidemic if we don’t find potent biomedical interventions, we are
not going to be able to turn off the tap,” she says.



Gray has dealt with innumerable women affected by HIV.



“I am sick and tired of HIV and I am sick and tired of how
it devastates lives and I am sick and tired of how it impacts women in Africa,”
Glenda says.



Gray, together with Dr Paul Stoffels, who is the head of
research and development for Johnson &amp; Johnson, have been trying to prove
HIV vaccines work.



Stoffels and his team have been working with HIV for more
than 25 years, developing ARV medication.



The medication has evolved from many pills a day to one a
day, he says.



“We are working on new medicines to bring it to an injectable to once every day to once every month. But we can treat HIV patients but they need to be treated for the rest of their lives,” he says.



“People can have normal life expectancy and live normal
lives with medicine but we won’t be able to stop the epidemic if we don’t get
to a vaccine.”



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="418" height="536" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Danai3.png" alt="" class="wp-image-39619" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Danai3.png 418w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Danai3-300x385.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Danai3-234x300.png 234w" sizes="(max-width: 418px) 100vw, 418px" /><figcaption> Dr Paul Stoffels, who is the head of research and development for Johnson &amp; Johnson. Picture: Motlabana Monnakgotla</figcaption></figure></div>



He says that the vaccine they have been working on has been
very active in animal models and they have now shifted to clinical trials in
humans to prove that it works.



“We are at a stage that we do the first efficacy study and
at the same time first we prove that it is safe and that it can be used by
people and then we prove that it is efficacious,” he says.



The people who become part of the vaccine study will be part
of the trial for years.



However, one of the challenges, he says they face is finding
people who are at risk to commit to being part of the long-term study.



Therefore, it is important to bring awareness to the public
about such studies being done.



“HIV prevention needs important people such as global stars
to step in and with Global Citizen, we had a perfect platform to be on the
global stage. And Danai is one of the people well known in Africa and she is
very committed to this objective and so we started collaborating with her to
bring the message of prevention, and also the message of importance of research
in getting to the HIV vaccines, in getting people to participate as well as to
stay on,” he says.



Other celebrities also known for the advocacy of HIV include
musician and actor Lady Gaga, musician Bono, television host Ellen DeGeneres
and musician Alicia Keys.



“What’s very important, I think, for a person like her
[Gurira] is to give the message of hope that one day we will be able to combat
the disease but at the same time, it is a message of ‘at this moment we need to
prevent’,” says Stoffels.



Gray agrees.



“She [Gurira] understands what it’s like to be a young
woman, she understands what it’s like to be a black young woman and how
difficult it is to navigate safe sex, masculinity, patriarchy and so she comes
with a lot of soul and insight.”



Eliminating the epidemic



After the release of In the Continuum, Gurira toured her play in South Africa and Zimbabwe.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“I met some courageous people on the ground at the front line of this epidemic.”</blockquote>



Through that, she was able to connect to a number of
organizations which she then got involved in.



“It not only allowed me to learn more but become more of a
vessel for advocacy and awareness,” Gurira says.



“It is really powerful to me that these women are here [at
the clinic] helming this study that could really eliminate this epidemic.



“There have been epidemics that have existed in past human
history that have been eliminated through vaccination and we could actually see
that come to pass. I am sitting on a site where this could come to pass for
HIV/AIDS, which is the epidemic of our time,” she says, hopeful.



“I’d like to see it eliminated.



“There are times when we tend to think that ‘oh HIV it is
being managed, and ARVs exist,’ and we forget that it is still a very active
fight.”



According to AVERT, an international HIV and AIDS charity,
in 2017, there were roughly 1.8 million new HIV infections, the same as in 2016
–&nbsp; about 5,000 new infections per day.



Therefore, Gurira says awareness is very important to avoid
the “issue fading in the background”.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="928" height="616" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Danai5.png" alt="" class="wp-image-39620" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Danai5.png 928w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Danai5-300x199.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Danai5-600x398.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Danai5-768x510.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 928px) 100vw, 928px" /><figcaption>From left to right, Dr Paul Stoffels, Danai Gurira and Dr Glenda Gray. Picture: Supplied by Global Citizen</figcaption></figure>



Having been born in the US and being Zimbabwean, her fight
for HIV has become global.



&nbsp;Since her appointment
by the UN, she aims for a larger reach.



Gurira says despite women being the focus of her advocacy,
everyone, including men and boys, need to be a part of this fight.



“As Canadian Prime Minister [Justin] Trudeau recently said,
which I really appreciated, he called himself a feminist. He said, ‘I am a
feminist and to be feminist you believe in the equality of men and women and
you believe there is a lot of work to do to get to that place’.”



The fight against HIV continues to be a global phenomenon, but with more awareness raised and efforts from everyone, we could be one vaccine away from eliminating it.

Danai1

Danai Gurira: The Celluloid Warrior Fighting Against HIV

Former South African president Nelson Mandela, in his autobiography Long Walk to Freedom, puts it best when he says,
“I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter; I have made missteps along the way. But I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.
“I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come.
“But I can only rest for a moment, for with freedom come responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not ended.”
These words resonate when assessing just how far women have come since the advent of democracy in South Africa, almost 20 years ago. And more importantly, how much more still needs to be done to realize gender equality and the fundamental transformation for women.
Looking back, there is no denying that change, even if it is slow and patchy in some areas, has impacted for the better, on the lived realities of women in Africa’s largest and most diverse economy.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-5717" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2013-Oct-036-038-CA-SA-women-002-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" />
Today, women are sitting at the head of the table in politics, business, the judiciary and almost all aspects of society.  South Africa’s Constitution and Bill of Rights wiped off the statute books several laws which sought to make African women in general and black women in particular the appendages  of their husbands, brothers and fathers.
It also restored to women their cultural rights, and ensured that these rights are protected by law. This provides some respite from the negative implications of some aspects of various cultures, which often see women pulling the short end of the stick.
South Africa has provided women leaders to Africa in the form of Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, who is now the chairperson of the African Union Commission. South African women also serve the globe, with the appointment of former deputy president Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka as the head of UN Women. These are just two examples of quality leadership developed and home-brewed in South Africa.
The economic rights in the country’s Constitution, at least on paper, also give legal recourse and protection to the indigent and marginalized. And given that poverty, disease and inequality remain feminized, this inclusion of second-generation rights is of particular significance for women.
While head-counting alone in the political arena is not always a true yardstick by which to measure gender equality, it does reflect critical mass, and marks just how important the visibility of women in leadership positions ought to be.
In the South African Cabinet, women are well represented, holding key ministries such as transport, defense, agriculture, home affairs and international relations. Of the nine provinces, five are led by women premiers, and the country’s massive police service is headed by Riah Phiyega.
One of the newest political parties  to contest the 2014 general elections, Agang, is headed by Dr. Mamphela Ramphele, a medical doctor and acade-
mic, who at the age of 65 has decided to run for political office.
Looking at the economic baro-meter, the picture is not as rosy, but it does show some slow progress. The 2012 Women in Leadership Census is a report conducted by the Business Women’s Association. Based on a survey of JSE-listed companies, state-owned enterprises and government, it shows that women in private enterprises occupied 4% of CEO or MD positions, 6% of board chair positions, 17% of directorships and 21% of exe-cutive management positions.
The report also found that women in executive management positions were more likely to be white than black, but that women holding directorships were more likely to be black.
Women are also lagging behind in the judiciary. South Africa’s justice minister, Jeff Radebe, says women continue to be under-represented as judges in the country’s court system, with only about a quarter in permanent posts.
He has also pointed out that of the 233 permanent judges appointed to different superior courts in the country, only 65 are women. Of that number, 45 are black and 20 are white.
This under-representation is not limited to judicial appointments. The allocation of legal work and briefs to legal practitioners is another area where there is almost a complete absence of women.
But change is afoot, according to Radebe, who plans to radically overhaul the criminal justice system to ensure gender parity and greater equality for women.
During Apartheid, however, women had to fight to make change happen.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-5714" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2013-Oct-036-038-CA-SA-women-003-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" />
On August 9, 1956, 20,000 South African women embarked on a march to demand the scrapping of the hated Pass laws. Marching in their thousands, their war cry rang out clearly: “Wathint’ abafazi, Strijdom! Wathint imbokodo uzo Kufa! (Now you have touched the women, Strijdom! You have struck a rock! You have dislodged a boulder! You will be crushed!)”
Even then, women made it clear that they would defy any efforts to prescribe their place in society. Even then, when repression was at its peak, women were determined to bring about change that would eventually see them participate as equals in the drafting of the country’s covenant, regarded as among the most progressive in the world.
This is why South Africans celebrate not only International Women’s Day on March 8, but also National Women’s Day on August 9. And as a mark of just how important gender equality is, the entire month of August is commemorated as Women’s Month. It not only allows for celebrating the gains made, but is also an opportunity to reflect on the drawbacks, the impediments and what more ought to and should be done to deepen gender equality.
Former South African deputy president, Baleka Mbete, who also serves on the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), remembers the key role women played in negotiating the new dispensation. She says that even in the ruling African National Congress (ANC), women still had to battle to have their voices heard.
“Even in the ANC, it wasn’t smooth sailing. The key was to be visible. Activism was at the root of what women were about. We had to do a lot of convincing to impact on the process. What we realized was that we needed to work together as women.”
Former Constitutional Court Judge Yvonne Mokgoro says the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are the two single most important documents that have changed women’s lives in South Africa.
“Poverty, as you know, is feminized, so too is indignity. For me, our Constitution and Bill of Rights are of particular relevance to women.
“Our Constitution is a covenant between us as a people. We didn’t sit in dark corners when it was drawn up. We – and I include us as women – negotiated that Constitution.
“What we need to do when we give life to what is contained in our Constitution is to dig deeper, do more. Set up monitoring mechanisms to ensure proper delivery of those services for people, but also for women in particular,” she says.
While the political struggle has seen great dividends, change in South Africa’s boardrooms is slow and often resisted. Back in 1994, Gloria Serobe, together with Wendy Luhabe, Louisa Mojela and Nomhle Canca, started a company called Wiphold, specifically to grow women’s investments. They believed that political emancipation without economic gains in the boardroom would constitute a pyrrhic victory for women.
Serobe, an accomplished and savvy businesswoman, who is wise in the ways of the world of commerce and high finance, says she and her co-founders realized that “true economic empowerment would require a process of wealth mobilization and accumulation, and that this would be especially important in the case of women’s empowerment”. She says this led them to explore the use of women’s investment clubs as ‘empowerment vehicles’.
Using workshops and educational forums, they crisscrossed the country, ratcheting up support from women across various socio-economic groups. The founders, after raising seed capital of $50,000 formed the WIP Four Company, Wiphold in microcosm. The company listed in the Investment Trust sector on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange five years later.
“Wiphold is the first organization dedicated explicitly to women’s economic empowerment to achieve a JSE listing. All board members are women. Voting control rests  with the Wiphold Investment Trust. In early 2000, value created for the Trust stood at $6.85 million,” Serobe says.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-5715" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2013-Oct-036-038-CA-SA-women-004-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" />
Wiphold later delisted from the JSE, but Serobe points out that of all the empowerment companies formed back in the 1990s, Wiphold is “still standing”.
Mbete and Mokgoro concur that South Africa in 2013 is a much better place for women in politics, business, government and in the social sphere. They are also united in the belief that the journey which started 56 years ago, when those courageous women marched against the Apartheid system, has to continue. Especially if women in South Africa are to achieve a real and qualitative shift – not only on paper, but also in behavior and attitude towards greater freedom, equality and gender parity.

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Danai Gurira: The Celluloid Warrior Fighting Against HIV

SA women’s journey