SMASH GROUP

WORLD AIDS DAY: Diagnosed positive at 19, now 43, a wife, mother, activist and blessing to lives... YINKA JEGEDE is our Woman Crush!

Olayinka Jegede-Ekpe (born 1978) is a Nigerian Nurse, an HIV/AIDS activist and the first Nigerian woman to publicly announce her health status.

After her diagnosis, she was shunned by friends and colleagues out of fear, refused to continue singing in the Choir and pressed by the administration of Wesley Nursing School, Ilesha, where she was studying at the time, to stop.

Yinka turned her story into a passion and became an activist, raising awareness about HIV/AIDS in Nigeria. She became a UNICEF Consultant and co-founded the Nigerian Community of Women Living With HIV/AIDS organisation, the first of the kind in the nation.

Against all odds, Yinka graduated as a Nurse in 2001 and in that same year, UNICEF helped her to access antiretroviral drugs for her own health after a friend was shocked by her weight loss.

What do you hear about iron sharpeneth iron? Our Woman Crush got married to a fellow campaigner who is also HIV-positive and in 2006, they gave birth to a healthy baby girl, who is negative.

Yinka Jegede has spoken home and abroad about HIV/AIDS and is a receiver of many awards including the Reebok Human Rights Award for her work on HIV/AIDS awareness. She insists that the HIV/AIDS epidemic will never be solved until women are seen as equal partners.

Becoming a Nurse, living for another 24 years (and of course more to come), birthing an HIV-negative baby and impacting lives are enough reasons to advocate beyond words that HIV/AIDS is just an epidemic.

STOP the Discrimination, End Inequalities, End AIDS