Lucette takes her life back by sharing her pain
Mamafa encouraged her to focus on only the positive things in her life and all of her blessings and her hope started to arise bit by bit.
A local young woman is ready to share her pain with the world with the hopes of saving a soul or two in the process.
Mtsenga (26) discovered she was HIV positive when she was only 17 years old while doing Grade 10.
“I started getting concerned when people started spreading rumours that I was positive. After that I began to have constant headaches until I decided to go to the clinic to get tested and the results came out positive,” she explained.
Mtsenga from Nkowankowa Township outside Tzaneen told The LETABA HERALD that the ‘bad news’ did not sink in immediately.
she told Herald.
When she went back to school she felt as if everyone was laughing at her and talking behind her back and decided to quit school and left her home to stay at a friend’s house.
However her family encouraged her to go back to school to start living a normal life which she tried for a while, but she was still overwhelmed by her situation.
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In 2013 she left Nkowankowa for Malamulele to continue her studies there in a new environment, but she could not finish her studies.
About a month back she was down and out and a texted her friend, Wesley Mamafa that “I feel like I’m going crazy and I want to die”.
Mamafa encouraged her to focus on only the positive things in her life and all of her blessings and her hope started to arise bit by bit.
Mamafa introuduced her to Lunghile Hlangwana an HIV/AIDS Councillor from One Voice Youth Development Organisation (OVYDO).
OVYDO is a non profit organisation founded by Mamafa and a group of his friends where they offer counselling services, tutorial classes and homework services to the community at low price at Bankuna High School from Monday to Saturday.
“Going through counselling helped me a lot, because she reminded me that I was not the only one going through this, but there are others with the same virus,” she added.
Mtsenga says she decided to speak up about her situation, because it is the right time for her to do so and she knows that there are many young people who are going through a similar thing and she wants them to know it is possible to live a normal life with the virus.
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She further said that she does not want to cause a stir for people she dated before she informed each one of them that she was coming out of the closet.
She wants to live her truth and pleads to the community to practice safe sex, because many people’ lives are at stake if they don’t.
Mtsenga is currently working with the OVYDO team to encourage other people to reach out for their dreams even with their virus in the ‘Don’t waste your pain campaign’.
“The campaign’s objective is to inspire people to share their pain with the hopes of uplifting souls that are in pain,” explained Mamafa.
” We are appealing to businesses and government to assist us with funding for the sustainance of the project,” he added.
For more information on the OVYDO services contact Wesley Mamafa on 072 671 1296 for more information.
