Why challenges of life are meant to make us stronger. (Part Two)

In continuation of the blog of how our challenges in life can bring out the best in us, I am writing about another HIV-positive human rights activist Maxensia Nakibuuka who is from Uganda. She talked about her experience after she lost her husband to AIDS in 1999. How she lost her job because of his death and the other attendant consequences of the stigmatization that followed. According to her she was down, sickly with no hope of bringing up her children. However with the help of a caring Christian community with support from the Global fund and the US Pepfar fund, she and her family were offered treatment, support and counseling from religious leaders.
In appreciation for all what was done for her she devoted herself to become part of the activism to end HIV and offered her own premises to be used as a clinic that offers treatment, mobilizes women, men and youth to do care-given from house to house, follow up patients who are on treatment, advise on nutrition, and other support services.
The point of this story is that she used her challenges in life to empower others. If she had not passed through that challenge of HIV, she will never know the power in her that is capable of doing what she did.
The last person I will mention is Crystal Chigbu, the brain behind Irede foundation in Nigeria. She founded it after the harrowing experience of seeing her little daughter lose her limb after suffering from a missing kneecap at birth with consequent amputation because of the infection of the limb. After that the daughter started using artificial limbs and it was what she as a mother passed through that made her to vow to provide solution to children in similar situation.
In order to help children in similar situation with an artificial limb which cost a lot of money, she has to source for fund from friends, kind hearted people from all over the world who go out of their way to give their widow's mite to see children fulfilling their dreams in life.
Since she started the foundation, she has been able to help a lot of children acquire artificial limb, the mobility they experience being a source of joy for them.
These two women just like the others I mentioned before turned their challenges into solution and a means of helping others instead of focusing alone on their loss and pain.
Once again the question is what is your loss? What is the pain you had passed through? Are you going to let the lesson learned to go with you when you die. Can you make the world a better place by empowering others to face their challenges with strength with your own story? Women like Oprah Winfrey, empowers others with their life story. Others shares their story on twitter like Kimhill csa Survivor @mystorykh83 and Angela @TherapyAfterCSA of being childhood abuse survivors and how they are both trying to heal as well as help others overcome similar past.
The important thing is to try our best to give to others after all one of the holy books says there is more happiness in giving than in receiving. What experience will you like to share with others? It will be appreciated if you share your story of survival for the benefit of mankind.

Why challenges of life are meant to make us stronger. (Part One)

Many of us as humans don’t want to face much problem in life. This is true because it is normal to prefer enjoying life rather than to experience life’s pain. However, no matter our wishes, things we do not expect do happen to us. Time and unexpected events must face us. The issue now is how we are going to handle them. Some takes the challenges they face in life to build a better version of themselves. Some even turn those adversities into things that make them to become well known and even took them to places and people they never dreamt of. No matter what we might have faced in life, if we look closely there is something in there for us to learn from. If we look close enough, there are endless possibilities that can still go along with it. Some, from the challenges they faced in life wrote books that became bestsellers. Some turn their adversities into creating something for the betterment of the world around them. They set up nonprofit organization. They set up charities to help others not to fall victims of what they passed through. 

I will share two experiences of two people that I know found out that they were HIV positive here in Nigeria who turned it into something positive and for the benefit of others. At a time when the stigma was very high and most HIV positives people hide themselves because of the social stigma; the two of them came out to say they were HIV positives. They went on public and became active public campaigners that were interviewed at conferences and seminars.

This people who were nobody when they did not have the disease became known in the world only after they see the positives in their situations rather than focusing on the negatives. Many world renowned inventors spoke about how many times they fail before they were able to get it right. They did not dwell on their failures but rather they focused on what they have got to do to get what they want.

The first among this people is Abigail Obetan who came into the limelight in 2002 after featuring on Newsline, the popular feature package presented as part of the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) Network News. Abigail who was then a counsellor with the Lagos State Agency for the control of AIDS (LSACA), featured on the programme to enlighten the Nigerian populace about living with HIV and the need to stop the stigmatization and Discrimination of people living with HIV.

Having been on the receiving end of the widespread epidemic of HIV related Stigma and discrimination from family and close friends, Abigail courageous used the media platform to convey the need to accept and relate with people living with HIV with dignity. Her coming out exposed her to a lot of discrimination from family and friends and even led to her daughter who is also HIV positive being rejected from the school she was attending because she came out on the publicly about her HIV status. Despite losing her daughter some few weeks after that incident, she moved on believing she has a mission to act on behalf of those living with this disease that cannot come out. She bore her pain, trauma and rejection stoically as she struggled to survive against all odds. She believed that HIV was not a stumbling block. She drew strength from her faith in God, believing rather that a better definition of HIV was ‘He Intends Victory’ a term she adopted from the name of a faith based non-governmental organization in the United States which provides spiritual and psychosocial support to people living with HIV.

For her courage and determination in the face of those challenging times, Abigail was honored with the “Heroes Award for Stigma Fighters at the 2003 edition of the Red Ribbon Awards, an event instituted by Journalists against AIDS (JAAIDS) Nigeria to recognize outstanding media and community contributions to the HIV/AIDS response in Nigeria. Though she died in 2011 from drug resistant strain of Tuberculosis, she is those that inspired the words “it is not how long we lived but how well and how much we impart the world.”

The other person is Pat Matemilola, a medical doctor who was the coordinator of network of people living with HIV/AIDS in Nigeria (NEWPHAN) for so many years. I met him at a workshop organized by World Bank/NACA for training community base organizations on project management. I was humbled by his willingness to talk about his HIV status at a time when people are very secretive about their status. He was willing to share his experiences with others but more importantly willing to work with organizations that will help to reduce the spread and stigmatization of people living with HIV/AIDS.

This two people that I mentioned turned their challenges in life into positives that they used to help others and in a larger way the world.

Whatever might be the challenges you might be facing instead of sitting down and crying over the past why don’t you think of what you can do to turn your experience in life for the betterment of humanity. You can set up a nonprofit organization, you can write a book. You can set up a blog to share your experience with the world. Whatever it is sit right up and think of moving the world forward just as this quote whose origin is unknown states “Excellence is the result of caring more than others think wise, risking more than others thinks safe, dreaming more than others think practical, and expecting more than others think possible”. So do you have challenges you are coping with? Will you like to share with others how you were able to cope and survive it? Your opinion will be highly appreciated.