Changing Hearts and Minds from the Pulpit in Zambia

Annie Kaseketi Mwaba - Zambia

Nov. 30, 2007—One by one, Annie Kaseketi Mwaba buried her husband and children. Then, in 2003, Annie herself fell ill. Her brother-in-law gave her permission to die.

After several months, she asked her doctor to test her for HIV. Initially, he said no. Zambia, after all, was a country in which HIV/AIDS was viewed as a consequence of immoral behavior. And Annie was a Christian preacher. Finally, though, he relented, and Annie started her long journey back to life.

“I thought HIV was for people who were not going to church,” says Annie, a minister with the Apostolic Church in Zambia. “I think I was in deep denial. I didn’t want to face this HIV thing. Until one evening, I was reading the Bible. It’s like somebody shed light there. If they find you’re HIV positive, your life is not in the virus, you’re life is in Christ.”

The following year, Annie’s remaining son, then nine years old, underwent treatment for tuberculosis. She decided to have him tested for the HIV virus, and he was positive, too. In fact, his immune system was more compromised than hers had ever been.

Now, mother and son are on the mend, and Annie has become a powerhouse in the effort to combat AIDS in Zambia. She works to mobilize faith leaders, traditional leaders and other community activists to include HIV intervention education in their programs. She has been featured on a number of radio and TV programs as a representative of religious leaders who are affected by or living with HIV and AIDS. Her son has followed her lead, talking openly about his health in school and in a documentary, though doing so brought ridicule from classmates.

In a country where any mention of AIDS used to be taboo, where discrimination and stigma inhibit the kind of societal discussion needed to combat the disease, Annie has intentionally spoken out, making her painful story the keystone of her battle to change hearts and minds. An elegant woman of 43, she has taken on religious leaders who preached that AIDS stemmed from evil behavior, that it was okay to let its victims die. “It’s amazing how God can use my mess and make it a message,” she declares.

When they married in 1986, Annie and her husband planned to have four children. The following year, they had their first child, who died at the age of five. Their second child was stillborn. Their third, a girl named Precious, was less than two when she died. Then, after he preached just once in their new church building, Annie’s husband passed away. Finally, Annie’s daughter Hannah died at the age of six.

“That really crushed me…I felt like I didn’t fit in, like I didn’t belong to humanity.”

A few months later, Annie got sick. Then her son started missing school.

Not long after Annie began living the secret life of HIV/AIDS patients in Zambia, a woman from her church confided to her that she was HIV-positive. “I thought about my husband – he might have been positive, and he died because we were silent. How many pastors have we buried?” Annie says. “I thought, ‘HIV is very much in the church, in the pews, and we have to break the silence.’ I decided the next Sunday, I will divulge my status from the pulpit.”

She did so, and left for neighboring Malawi the next day. When she returned home, the floodgates had opened. Annie was deluged with congregants who told her that they, too, were living with HIV. “I felt that my coming out gave permission to others to share,” she says.

Months later, she was attending a workshop sponsored by World Vision International, a Christian relief and development organization. When it was her turn to address the religious leaders, Annie told them of her friend, “Grace,” a minister who had tested positive after losing her husband and children to AIDS. The response was harsh and unyielding. “She killed her husband! She killed her children! She was a prostitute! Let her die!” one leader bellowed. If he were the government, this man continued, he would poison antiretroviral drugs so that AIDS patients would perish.

“Then I said that was my story,” Annie says softly. “I walked to him and said, ‘Do I have to die?’ He said, ‘No, you don’t.’” Now, Annie works with an international organization to mobilize Christian and Islamic faith communities to respond to AIDS, and to prevent HIV infection among children. She facilitates community-led initiatives to combat the disease and identify and help vulnerable households and children, many of them orphans. According to the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, AIDS has orphaned 710,000 children in Zambia, a country whose residents have a life expectancy of just 40 years. In 2004, Annie says, Zambia had 75,000 street kids, 47 percent of whom were orphaned by HIV. Kaiser reports that in 2005, 1.1 million people, a full 17 percent of Zambia’s population, were living with HIV/AIDS. Only six other countries have a higher infection rate. Fifty-seven percent of those infected were women and 12 percent – or 130,000 of them – were children. Mostly, she is touched by the little ones. “If our children are not supported in life, what will our journey be? Annie asks. “They have to find a place that is home.”

The faith community, she says, now views HIV/AIDS as “not about them – but about us.”

In working to reduce the transmission of HIV, Annie has focused in part of the cultural practices that play a large part in spreading the disease. For instance, Annie says, when a Zambian woman is widowed, she is supposed to be “sexually cleansed.” That means she has to sleep with her husband’s brother – in most cases without a condom. Annie says the practice, which she did not adhere to when her own husband died, can lead to quick transmission of HIV, especially in households in which a husband has multiple wives.

When she attended the Advancing Women’s Leadership and Advocacy for AIDS Action workshop in Washington in July 2007, Annie says she learned how to articulate gender issues in a more effective manner as well as how to form partnerships with other community organizations. “I’m going back with a different passion,” she says. Among other things, Annie says she wants to mobilize Zambian women to help orphans who are living with HIV. Many live with their grandmothers, who often are illiterate and don’t know how to correctly administer the antiretroviral drugs needed to keep the children alive.

“This workshop has energized me,” Annie says. “I saw the need, but I never took it to heart.”

As for her own family, Annie’s son, now 14, is faring well. “His health is better because he can see the smile on my face,” Annie says.

Annie has remarried. Her husband, a musician who writes songs about HIV/AIDS, also has tested positive. The two shared their stories with guests at their wedding.

The couple has taken in a young woman, 21, who called Annie after hearing her speak at her school. “She said, ‘I have never known my mother,” Annie recalls, “ ‘and my father died when I was in eighth grade.’” Her name, Annie says with a smile, is Precious.

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Annie participated in Advancing Women’s Leadership and Advocacy for AIDS Action, an initiative to equip and empower a cadre of women from around the world with the knowledge and skills to strengthen and lead the global response to AIDS.

You can read more about the initiative here.

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