Mulago Positive Women’s Network: Celebrity Supporters

The Mulago Positive Women’s Network (MPWN) was started in Kampala, Uganda, in January 2004 to focus more attention on the specific needs of HIV+ women and their families within the country.The MPWN works to empower its members by providing them with essential information regarding their health status and by helping the women obtain marketable job skills in order to better maintain their families’ stability.

Most of the women of the MPWN receive their ARV’s (anti-retroviral medications) through the U.S. government funded program PEPFAR which was established into law in 2003 to fight the spread of HIV/AIDS in fifteen targeted countries, mainly in Africa and the Caribbean Islands. Through the actions of U.S. advocacy groups such as ONE (www.one.org), PEPFAR has helped to sustain lives and create futures for over 1,000,000 people in Africa in just the last several years.

The MPWN is headquartered at TASO (The AIDS Support Organization – www.tasouganda.org), located within Mulago Hospital in Kampala,the largest hospital in the country. The organization maintains a small store on the grounds of the Mulago Hospital which allows the women to sell the traditional Ugandan craft items that they make to help provide for their families.

The connections between ONE and the MPWN are quite strong. When Bono, lead singer of the internationally known rock group, U2, and a longtime activist for Africa (co-founder of DATA, ONE, (RED) and EDUN), visited Uganda in May 2002, he met with some of the members of TASO.

Bono was particularly impressed with the main facilitator of MPWN, Agnes Nyamayarwo, whose life experience with HIV/AIDS and whose quiet heroism in fighting it impressed him so much that he ultimately invited Agnes to join him and others on the “Heart of America” tour in December 2002 which launched DATA, the first African advocacy organization which Bono helped to found.

Agnes continues her work to this day with the MPWN and TASO and continues to advocate for a better future for Africa through ONE.

How you can help

Since Valentine’s Day 2008, people have been able to visit the MPWN website which directly links them with some of those most directly affected by the AIDS pandemic in Africa.

The website of the Mulago Positive Women’s Network (MPWN) – www.mpwn-uganda.org – is a unique opportunity for the public to interact with some of those in Africa directly affected by the AIDS pandemic. The website contains personal stories of some of the women of the MPWN along with links to associated websites where visitors can learn more about how they can help stop HIV/AIDS and extreme poverty in Africa.

Visitors to the website can also purchase some of the traditional African craft items that the women of the MPWN produce. All proceeds from the sale of these craft items will go directly to the women who produce them. Craft items that are available for purchase include African beaded necklaces, batik wall hangings, hand-carved wooden statues, African baskets, handmade African greeting cards and an African mother/child doll handmade by Agnes Nyamayarwo herself.

For more info, please contact us at info@mpwn-uganda.org or call Debbie at (512) 992-7782.