The AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) is a Los Angeles-based global non-profit organisation that provides cutting-edge medicine and advocacy to more than 772842 people in 39 countries. The organisation is currently the largest provider of HIV/AIDS medical care in the U.S.

AHF has been running outreach programmes in South Africa for 16 years. Their work in South Africa started in 2002 with the establishment of the Ithembalabantu Clinic in Umlazi, Kwa-Zulu Natal.

In an effort to create awareness around sexual health matters, AHF will be bringing AHF ambassador and RnB songstress Goapele, and BET stars Courtney Burrell and Khalilah Dubose to Johannesburg and Durban. They will be taking part in town hall discussions in which they will engage and exchange information with the youth on matters of sexual health and related social issues.

“We are bringing this delegation to South Africa for the purpose of exposing them to work that AHF does outside of America. South Africa was chosen as a destination because of the extensive network of clinics that AHF provides services to,” says Samantha Granberry the Vice-President of AHF Worldwide, Marketing and Sales.

The engagements with the celebrities are dubbed “Town Hall Discussions” and are a ground-breaking, cross-continental, 360-degree, mass-media, behaviour-change activation that aims to generate international conversation and awareness around HIV/AIDS, sexual health practices, sexual experiences along with cross-continental similarities and solutions on HIV/AIDS and societal issues.

 “Through this tour, we are hoping to get the youth of America engaging with South Africa’s youth in firstly understanding the situation we are currently in with regards to HIV/AIDS. In South Africa, women between the ages of 12 to 25 are 3 times more likely to be infected with HIV/AIDS than their male counterparts. American youth are also dying of HIV/AIDS and we believe that dialogue between the youth from both countries can lead us in the right direction in our quest to find a solution because the youth are the future in the fight against HIV/AIDS” says Dr Penny Lutung, AHF Bureau Chief of Africa.

The delegation will be visiting the AHF clinics in Heidelberg, a small town 50km’s east of Johannesburg, along with Umlazi’s Ithembalabantu Clinic, a township 20km’s south-west of Durban, along with areas of significant cultural importance such as the Apartheid Museum, Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory, Hector Peterson and Regina Mundi Church in Soweto.


For more information on AHF, visit either www.aidshealth.org or www.facebook.com/aidshealth.org

Click on the links below to view Town Hall Discussions that were held in the United States of America by AHF this year.

  1. RISE ABOVE HIV (National town hall Tour targeting African-American Women featuring Goapele):  https://youtu.be/cIYOm5RXhiU
  2. #KYST (Know Your Status National Tour targeting African-American College Students):  https://youtu.be/wrVJrWWyi6s

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