Growing up in Johannesburg’s impoverished Alexandra township, Florence Ngobeni-Allen, who is now an HIV/AIDS educator and counselor, has long understood the concept of philanthropy. For her it was summed up by “ubuntu,” an elegant Xhosa word that translates roughly to “I am because you are.”
That ideal is personified in the Nomthunzi Project, a grassroots initiative that Ngobeni-Allen runs that provides psychological support for women and teens with HIV from within the world’s third-largest hospital, Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto, South Africa. Ngobeni-Allen, 39, learned that she was HIV-positive in September 1996. Her husband suddenly got sick, withered away and died within months.
Then her 5-month-old daughter, Nomthunzi, became ill, and Ngobeni-Allen took her to the doctor. There, she discovered that they were both HIV-positive and that she had passed the disease to her daughter. Nomthunzi died weeks later. The initiative is named after that child, who today would be in her teens.
” ‘Ubuntu’ defines what has kept the Nomthunzi Project going so far,” Ngobeni-Allen told The Root.
What makes this generation of African philanthropists unique is that many have been shaped by their own personal battles. Their efforts are often grassroots in nature and draw heavily from local support. Unfortunately, Ngobeni-Allen says, that’s not enough. She still has to work as a consultant to pay her family’s bills. In doing so, she has toured the world giving powerful speeches about her experience.
Read more: The Root
