Ndiviwe Mphothulo grew up in Jabavu in Soweto with activism in his bloodline. At 12, he started in student politics. By 16, he managed to calmly talk a student who hijacked a bakery truck We were hungry, the student explained into returning it.
Mphothulo ended up in medical school, realising he could both practice medicine and build communities, and then at Taung Hospital, where he helped transform multidrug-resistant TB cure rates by addressing social barriers like transport and unemployment rather than just focusing on medical treatment.
Now hes president of the Southern African HIV Clinicians Society and fighting to keep South Africas HIV programmes intact in the face of the Trump administrations devastating funding cuts.
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The first Black president of the Southern African HIV Clinicians Society is not okay with the current phenomenon of lambasting the countrys preeminent struggle heroes.
You see it more and more, this thing of South Africans labelling Mandela a sell-out, calling Mamphela Ramphele a sell-out, and others. People need to start telling us about themselves first, like I am Thabo from Taung, I helped this many marginalised Black people in my village and township, and that is why I hold this view. Activism is hard, most have no idea, Ndiviwe Mphothulo says, the afternoon sun turning his spectacles into mirrors that reflect the spacious but austere living room of his Glenvista home.