Tekano-Andile_Mthombeni

Andile Mthombeni

I am the first young board of trustees member of the South African National Aids Council (SANAC), nominated by the (then) Deputy President of the country Mr Cyril Ramaphosa. This is in alignment with the new National Strategic Plan (NSP) in response to the HIV epidemic in the country.

It is a huge task for 5 years and as a board member we are responsible for the monitoring and evaluation as well as oversight of the implementation of the NSP by the various organisations under SANAC. Furthermore, I also serve on the audit, risk and financial committee of the Board.

 My line of work focuses on Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights for young black women. We conducted research on Sexual Harassment on our campus Wits University) and published an article, in AGENDA, a Feminist journal.

 With government learning of our advocacy work, I was nominated to join a Ministerial Technical Task Team for Sexual & Gender Based Violence (SGBV) in Institutions of Higher Learning, a task team that is working on developing a policy document on responding to Gender Based Violence. This task team was established as a response to the protests by Rhodes (university) students back in 2016 #RUReferencelist.

I serve on this task team both as a student representative but also as an expert based on the advocacy research work that we do on gender based violence and sexual harassment on our university campuses. This policy document will serve as a first of its kind, as a guideline for institutions of higher learning response mechanisms to GBV within their respective institutions.

 In 2019 I will complete my M.A in Research Psychology