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She had been a good girl and must have wondered what cruel fate must have been forced on her. Her life immediately changed. She was maligned by her family members, with a different bottle of water to drink water.

They also felt the need to be extra-careful on anything Jo-Ann had used. It wasn’t their fault, but a limited information in a dark world without sufficient information on a disease they knew nothing of, but that it kills.

In 2013, Jo-Ann told Namib Times that, “It all started out as being an innocent young child at school, and then I fell pregnant. I was 5 months pregnant at the time when I received a phone call from the doctor saying I needed to come in immediately. I got there and there was a crowd waiting to tell me I have AIDS and was going to die.”

She later told UNICEF that, “The only thing I knew about HIV was that it was a death sentence. I didn’t want to die. I was only a kid and had a lot of dreams. Even my own mother changed when I told her about my status. And the same thing happened over and over again in the family, in the community, in the city. I just couldn’t be with others anymore. I was denied all rights.

The then young girl reached her breaking point when her school’s principal told her to stop coming to school, “That was my breaking point, because I loved school, even if I were pregnant and HIV-positive. At that moment I was hopeless.

When her mother started planning her funeral, she left for her grandmother’s place in Witvlei, Namibia. She accepted her. From there, she started learning about HIV and enrolled in a UNICEF programme on antiretroviral drugs that separated her disease from her child.

“Remi is 13 years old now. He is my strength and my courage. He made me wake up every morning and keep dreaming, keep believing and have hope.” She says of her son.

After Remi’s birth, Jo-Ann returned to school and earned a qualification in project management, then became an advocate for HIV/AIDS and told her story in her book, A Diary from the Land of the Brave.

From there, she rose to distinguished assemblies like the 2007 United Nations General Assembly, before becoming the toast of Witvlei to become their mayor at 26 and pioneered a huge housing project for the poor and desolate.

She says, “In 2010, the same community that had thrown stones at me, that literally had wanted to kill me, asked me to stand before them and show them that there is light at the end of the tunnel.”

Then she became the Public Relations Officer of a German initiative in 2016 after she got out of office. In 2016, there were 19.4 million people living with HIV (53%) in eastern and southern Africa and 6.1 million (17%) in western and central Africa, according to statistics by HIV.

 

Culled from pulse.ng

Palestinian-American Rashida Tlaib and Somali-American Ilhan Omar have become the first Muslim women elected to US Congress.

Tlaib took Michigan’s 13th congressional district in a race in which she was the sole major party candidate. Omar won Minnesota’s strongly Democratic fifth congressional district, replacing the first Muslim congressman, Keith Ellison, who vacated his seat to run in the state’s attorney general race.

Who are Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar?

Tlaib, 42, was born in Detroit to Palestinian immigrant parents.

She made history in 2008 by winning a seat on the Michigan Legislature, becoming the first Muslim woman to do so.

Her campaign platform included pledges to secure a $15 minimum wage, preventing cuts to welfare programmes, such as Medicare and Social Security, as well as stopping tax relief to large corporations.

Omar, who arrived in the US at the age of 14 after fleeing civil war in Somalia, campaigned on a similarly progressive platform, which calls for universal healthcare and tuition-free colleges.

She said her political life began attending local Democratic Farmer Labor party caucuses with her grandfather after arriving in the US.

 

Credit: Al Jazeera

Temie Giwa-Tubosun (born Oluwaloni Olamide Giwa, 4 December 1985) is a Nigerian-American Health Manager, Founder of LifeBank (formerly One Percent Project), a business enterprise in Nigeria working to improve access to blood transfusions in the country.

Temie was born in Ila Orangun, Osun State, Nigeria to a university professor and school teacher. She is the fourth of six children. Her name “Temie” came from the abridging of “Temitope”, one of her birth names.

She grew up in Ila, Ilesha, and in Ibadan until she was fifteen. When she was ten, her parents won the US Diversity Immigrant Visa and left for the United States with the three older siblings. In 2001, at fifteen, she left to join them with her two younger siblings.

Temie attended Osseo Senior High School, Minnesota, and graduated in 2003. She then attended the Minnesota State University Moorhead and graduated in 2007. In 2008, she went to graduate school at Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey from where she graduated in July 2010.

In January 2010, she went for a graduate fellowship at the World Health Organisation in Geneva, Switzerland, which lasted till July of that year when she graduated Middlebury Institute of International Studies Monterey.

She worked briefly at Fairview Health Services in Minnesota in 2010.

In January 2016, Temie founded LifeBank, a business organisation set up to tackle the problem of blood shortage in Nigeria. The founding was inspired by the birth of her first child and the complications from that experience. The technology and logistics company is based in Lagos, and incubated at Co-Creation Hub in Yaba. As at January 2017, the company has helped deliver over 2000 pints of blood to patients across the state.

On August 31, 2016, she met with Mark Zuckerberg during his first visit to Nigeria. She was one of the two women Zuckerberg referenced in his town hall meeting the next day. Of her work, Zuckerberg had said,

“If everyone had the opportunity to build something like this, then the world would be a better place… I’ve been to a lot of different cities… people around the world are trying to build stuff like that. If she actually pulls it off, then she’d show a model that will impact not just Lagos, not just Nigeria, but countries all around the world.”

Of the meeting, Temie said to Quartz, “Mark’s visit is validation for years of work and everything we’re trying to do.”

Pearls Africa Foundation’s Abisoye Ajayi-Akinfolarin has been named one of CNN’s 10 Heroes of 2018!

Ajayi-Akinfolarin is one of 10 people around the entire world who will receive $10,000 in support of their heroic endeavors. One of the 10 will be chosen as the “CNN Hero of the Year,” and will receive the sum of $100,000.

Speaking about her cause, CNN said:

Abisoye Ajayi-Akinfolarin left her career to teach computer programming to girls in Lagos, Nigeria where Facebook and Google opened offices earlier this year. A 2013 survey found that less than 8% of Nigerian women are employed in professional, managerial or technology jobs. Ajayi-Akinfolarin hopes to change that statistic.

The “CNN Heroes: An All-Star Tribute” will air live on Sunday, December 9, where Ajayi-Akinfolarin, along with the other 9 heroes, will be celebrated.

You can vote for her to become the “CNN Hero of the Year” here.

 

Credit: Bella Naija

Dr Hadiyah-Nicole Green is the recent winner of $1.1 million grant from the Veterans Affairs’ Office of Research & Development to begin clinical trials to further develop a technology she’s pioneered that uses laser-activated nanoparticles to treat cancer.

Here are 8 things you should know about Dr Hadiyah-Nicole Green.

1.Green was orphaned at a young age and raised by her aunt and uncle in St. Louis Missouri

2.She attended Alabama A&M University with a full scholarship, where she studied physics and earned her bachelor’s degree in physics and optics in 2003.

3.Green continued her education at the University of Alabama Birmingham with another full scholarship, where she earned her Masters Degree in physics in 2009 and her PhD in Physics in 2012.

4.Green lost both her guardians to cancer during her undergraduate days.

5.Green was a member of a team that developed a laboratory method to insert nanoparticles into cancer cells while avoiding surrounding healthy cells in USA.

6.In 2016, Green became an assistant professor at Morehouse School of Medicine in Physiology department.

7.She received a $1.1 million grant from the Veterans Affairs’ Office of Research & Development to begin clinical trials.

8.Dr Green created the technology that kills cancer cells with a treatment using laser-activated nanoparticles.

 

 

Source: fabwoman.ng

Adele has been named as the richest British celebrity aged 30 and under for the third consecutive year.

The Grammy award-winning songstress toppled One Direction off the top spot in 2016. She retained the position in 2017 and in 2018 after her estimated wealth went from £132million to £147.5million, the Hello singer retained her crown yet again.

According to Heat magazine’s 2018 Rich List, Adele, 30, is the top on the list. Ed Sheeran has jumped to second place from third position in 2017. The 27-year old singer-songwriter knocks Harry Potter actor, Daniel Radcliffe, to third place for the first time.

Although Adele has been keeping a low profile, she still manages to be a cash-magnet. In 2017 alone she pocketed £9million from record sales, while her world tour last summer earned her a massive £42million. There’s also talk of a £22million year-long Vegas residency in the future.

 

 

 

Source: stargist.com

46-year-old Sofia Vergara has been listed by Forbes as the highest paid actress on the small screen for the seventh year in a row, earning $42.5m in 2017-18.

The actress owes this earning not only to her salary from ABC’s hit comedy The Modern Family but also to endorsements and lucrative licensing deals including, coffee maker SharkNinja Coffee and furniture chain Rooms To Go, which make up nearly half of her paycheck.

At number 2 is Big Bang Theory star Kaley Cuoco, who earned a total of in $24.5 million before taxes, and Grey’s Anatomy’Ellen Pompeo at number 3 with $23.5 million.

Together, the world’s 10 highest-paid TV actresses earned a combined $168.5 million between June 1, 2017, and June 1, 2018, up from $156.5 million in the same period last year.

All the earnings recorded are before taxes, and fees to agents, managers and staff.

See the top 10 highest-earning TV actresses below:

  • Sofia Vergara – $42.5 million
  • Kaley Cuoco – $24.5 million
  • Ellen Pompeo – $23.5 million
  • Mariska Hargitay – $13 million
  • Julie Bowen – $12.5 million
  • (tie) Mayim Bialik – $12 million
  • (tie) Melissa Rauch – $12 million
  • Kerry Washington – $11 million
  • Claire Danes -$9 million
  • Pauley Perrette  – $8.5 million

 

 

Credit: Bella Naija

Google Doodle is celebrating Late Dr. Ameyo Stella Adadevoh’s 62nd posthumous birthday today, October 27, 2018.

Late Dr Adadevoh was a Nigerian Medical Doctor. She bravely curbed a wider spread of the Ebola Virus in Nigeria by placing the Ebola patient, Patrick Sawyer, in quarantine despite pressures from the Liberian Government. She is known for preventing the Nigerian index case from leaving the hospital at the time of diagnosis, thereby playing a key role in curbing the spread of the virus in Nigeria.

On 4 August 2014, it was confirmed that she had tested positive for Ebola virus disease and was being treated. Adadevoh died in the afternoon of 19 August 2014. She was survived by her husband Afolabi, and son Bankole, among other relatives.

Google wrote:

Stella Adadevoh’s 62nd Birthday

October 27, 2018

Today’s Doodle celebrates Dr. Ameyo Stella Adadevoh, the physician whose expertise and heroic efforts curbed the spread of Ebola in Nigeria in 2014.

Born in Lagos, Nigeria on this day in 1956, Dr. Adadevoh descended from a long line of respected scientists and statesmen. Dr. Adadevoh completed her residency at Lagos University Teaching Hospital West African College of Physicians and Surgeons credential before doing a fellowship in London. Following her fellowship in endocrinology at Hammersmith Hospital, she returned to Lagos, Nigeria where she spent 21 years at the First Consultants Medical Center and served as the Lead Consultant Physician and Endocrinologist.

In July 2014 a Liberian-American attorney arrived in Lagos on a flight from Monrovia heading to a conference on economic development and collapsed in the airport. The patient was taken to First Consultant Medical Center, where one of Dr. Adadevoh’s colleagues first diagnosed him as suffering from malaria. Although no Nigerian doctor had seen a case of Ebola before, Dr. Adadevoh suspected the patient might have been exposed to the highly contagious virus and subsequently ordered blood tests to confirm while also alerting Nigerian health officials.

While awaiting test results, Dr. Adadevoh was pressured by Liberian government officials to let the patient go so he could attend the conference as planned. Despite threats of lawsuits, Dr. Adadevoh stood firm, stating that she would not release the patient “for the greater public good.”

The test results came back positive for the Ebola virus and while the patient could not be treated in time, Dr. Adadevoh’s medical insight and the courage of her convictions ensured that other exposed patients could be treated rapidly and that the outbreak was contained. Unfortunately, in treating the initial patients, Dr. Adedevoh contracted the virus and passed away, along with three of her colleagues at the medical center.

Her legacy lives on through DRASA (Dr. Ameyo Stella Adadevoh) Health Trust, a nonprofit organization devoted to public health that works with communities and health workers to reduce the spread of infectious diseases and ensure that Nigeria is well prepared for future outbreaks.

Happy Birthday Dr. Adadevoh!

I’m going to live in this body forever, so I just need to love myself and accept that this is who I am.

These are words spoken by Sinikiwe Kademaunga, a Zimbabwean woman born without arms and legs.

Sinikiwe sat with Barcroft TV for their “Born Different” special, where she spoke about surviving as a woman without limbs.

Watch below:

Credit: Bella Naija

Ethiopian members of parliament have elected Sahle-Work Zewde as the country’s first female president, making her Africa’s only female head of state.

(Photo: BBC)

President Sahle-Work, at her swearing-in ceremony, promised to work hard to make gender equality a reality in Ethiopia, and promote peace in the country:

“I urge you all, to uphold our peace, in the name of a mother, who is the first to suffer from the absence of peace.”

She was voted in after the unexpected resignation of her predecessor, Mulatu Teshome. President Sahle-Work has previously served as an ambassador for Ethiopia in Senegal and Djibouti. She has also held a number of UN positions, including head of peace-building in the Central African Republic and, most recently, the UN representative at the African Union.