24 Jun 2018

On that fateful day back in 2000, Mr Oathotse Specu Segwagwa walked down the corridors of the Thebephatshwa Airbase clinic.

He had not been feeling well for a number of days.

A fever had been troubling him and when it lingered for longer than usual, he decided to check it out. After the health personnel did all the tests he had asked for, he got more than he bargained for.

“I was not expecting anything more than just a simple explanation for my fever and maybe a few medications to take home,” he said.

Then the nurse broke the news to him. He was HIV positive! It was news that could bring many crashing to the ground, particularly back then when stigma was still high and treatment not as advanced as today.  Mr Segwagwa said surprisingly, the pronouncement did not shock him.

Not that he knew there was a chance he could be positive, but he just had strength, the origins of which he did not know.

“Immediately I left the clinic, I called people closer to me, including my sisters, and informed them about my status.

The only challenge was my mother who advised me to keep my status a secret and when I informed her that I had already told others, she was troubled,” he said, laughing out loud and exposing his missing molar.

Mr Segwagwa said as the virus progressed he made a journey to Princess Marina Hospital in Gaborone as at the time Infectious Diseases Control Centres (IDCC) existed in only a few places around the country.

There he met people with a similar status and they started chatting about the challenges of living with the virus.

“That’s where I learnt for the first time about the existence of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) such as BONEPWA and COCEPWA that were running various programmes such as basic HIV/AIDS education.

I started visiting some of them and it really enlightened me on matters of HIV and AIDS,” he said. Fast-forward 18 years and today Mr Segwagwa is a robust AIDS activist whose services are in demand across the whole Kweneng West area including villages as far as Tsetseng, about 300km from his home.

All this on voluntary basis. Mr Segwagwa said when he returned home to Letlhakeng in 2002, he used the knowledge he had acquired to start a support group, thereby kick starting his journey as an AIDS activist.

Back then it was a challenge forming such a group as stigma was still high, but having already gone public about his status helped.

“That enabled people to sneak up to me and seek advice.

Our meetings were initially held in secrecy because the first few members didn’t want the community knowing about them,” he said, adding that he eventually managed to convince them to open up and seek medical assistance.

He said the support group grew and enabled them to form other groups in all Kweneng West villages with the help of the District AIDS Coordinating Office and NGOs.

The 57-year-old single father of two however indicated that the war on HIV and AIDS was being frustrated by lack of funds.

“Ever since donors pulled out, most of the support groups we formed are no longer active because of lack of funds. We don’t even have funds for meetings anymore and even the income generating projects we established, like gardens, are difficult to sustain,” he said.

He said they used to have events such as Mr and Miss HIV Positive beauty pageant as well as capacity building workshops, which went a long way in spreading the HIV and AIDS message, but not anymore. “The death of support groups hit hard on the war against HIV because the groups were like foot soldiers working in the community.

The Ministry of Health and Wellness needs to work more with support groups. These days information on HIV is more confined to the office,” he said. He said support groups could complement the ministry, particularly in areas where there is shortage of manpower and other resources.

Mr Segwagwa said another aspect that killed support groups was lack of an allowance for the volunteers, explaining that even though volunteerism was about sacrificing, a small allowance would help pay expenses such as transportation. The AIDS coordinator for Letlhakeng Sub-district, Mr Onkabetse Ntswetswe who works closely with Mr Segwagwa has nothing but praises of him.

“In all the places I have worked, I have never met a volunteer with so much passion and determination. He does the work for the love of it, not for rewards. He is a foot soldier who is so good in community mobilisation that whenever we have an upcoming event we send him ahead, then we are sure that he would have mobilised the whole community when we get there,” he said.

He said he had seen many volunteers losing interest with time while Mr Segwagwa kept going. The coordinator said Mr Segwagwa often came in handy when people who tested HIV positive had a problem accepting their status.  “Because of his experience, we often refer people who are in denial to him and he always manages to counsel and help them accept themselves,” he said.

Mr Ntswetswe said what he admired most about Mr Segwagwa was his openness about his status to the extent of taking his medication in public. He acknowledged that he had learnt a lot about HIV/AIDS from Mr Segwagwa and that the activist worked so smoothly with staff that clients often mistook him for a fulltime employee.

Mr Segwagwa said his many years of activism had not gone unrecognised as he had received a number of awards from among others the Kweneng and Letlhakeng District Health Management Teams.

In 2016 he got the HIV and AIDS District Engagement Champion award and was also honoured by BONEPWA last year.

He vows that with or without an allowance, he will fight the war until his death.

After all, he said, he had so much experience in the battle field and jokingly boasts that few doctors would dare challenge him when it came to matters of HIV and AIDS.ENDS