The Google doodle on 4 February pays tribute to HIV/Aids activist Nkosi Johnson who was born on this day.
Johnson is remembered as an Aids activist who had challenged commonly held perceptions about the disease and government policies at the time. He was born on 4 February 1989 and died from complications linked to his illness on 1 June 2001, becoming the longest-surviving HIV-positive child at the time.
He gained international prominence following his address to the 13th international Aids conference in Durban on July 2000 where he said, “We are normal. We have hands. We have feet. We can walk, we can talk, we have needs just like everyone else. Don’t be afraid of us, we are all the same.”
In 1999, his adoptive mother Gail Johnson started Nkosi’s Haven, an organisation that gives long-term residential care to HIV positive mothers and their children.
On 29 January this year, the organisation received a kind donation of over-the-counter medicine from Dis-Chem Carlswald. Check out the full story about the donation in the upcoming edition of the Midrand Reporter.
Details: nkosishaven.org
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