Johnson, Nkosi

Activist against Aids
(4.02.1989 - 1.06.2001 Johannesburg/South Africa)

Nkosi was born with Aids, infected through his mother Nonthlanthla Nkosi. Abandoned by her own family, she took the young boy to a care centre, where one of the directors, Gail Johnson, took Nkosi like her own child. When Nkosis primary school did not accept Nkosi due to his HIV infection, she took the matter to the media and to the courts. Finally Nkosi was allowed to go to school. In 1997 his biological mother died. In 2000 during the 13th International Aids Conference Nkosi captured world wide attention, when during a public speech he criticized (11 years old!) his own president Thabo Mbeki for his insufficient handling of the Aids epidemic. Fighting for awareness of the HIV-danger and for tolerance towards those, that are infected, he finally lost his own fight and died of Aids in 2001