Bolelwa — When a Birthday is the Gift

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Bolelwa

Lesotho

31 years

Single mom

Began antiretroviral therapy in 2000

Back in 1999, when she was 21, Bolelwa learned she was HIV positive and that she had just thirty days to live.

Thirty days to live… “Get your affairs in order”, this young woman was told. At the time, access to treatment in Lesotho was difficult and expensive, information about HIV was scarce and even some healthworkers were ill-informed. In fact, Bolelwa remembers selling her belongings to pay for her life-sustaining medication: “I started with my kitchen unit and my lounge set because somehow I needed to buy the drugs at the time…”

Happily the advice that Bolelwa had just 30 days to live was simply wrong and today, the antiretroviral (ARV) therapy she needs to stay alive is available and free in Lesotho thanks in part to financing from (RED).

As for Bolelwa she is now strong, healthy, and leading a positive life raising her teenage daughter.

Bolelwa speaks passionately about helping ensure people diagnosed with HIV today don't have to go through what she had to as a young woman ten years ago: “I do not want to see the next person facing what I faced. If I am in a position to change it - let me do it now.”