Nkosi Johnson

Nkosi Johnson (4 Febraury 1989 - 1 June 2001) was a South African child victim of HIV/AIDS, who made a powerful impact on public perceptions of the pandemic and its effects before his death at the age of 12.
He was the longest surviving child born with the HIV/AIDS virus in South Africa.

Nkosi, whose birth name was Xolani Nkosi, was born to Nonthlanthla Daphne Nkosi in a township east of Johannesburg. He never knew his father.
Nkosi was HIV-positive from birth, and was legally adopted by Gail Johnson, a Johannesburg Public Relations practitioner, when his own mother, debilitated by the disease, was no longer able to care for him.

The young Nkosi Johnson first came to public attention in 1997, when a primary school in the Johannesburg suburb of Melville refused to accept him as a pupil because of his HIV-positive status. The incident caused a furor at the highest political level - South Africa's Constitution forbids discrimination on the grounds of medical status - and the school later reversed its decision.
Nkosi's birth mother died of HIV/AIDS in the same year that he started school. His own condition steadily worsened over the years, although, with the help of medication and treatment, he was able to lead a fairly active life at school and at home.

Nkosi was the keynote speaker at the 13th International AIDS conference in Durban, where he encouraged AIDS victims to be open about the disease and to seek equal treatment. "Care for us and accept us," he said at the conference. "We are all human beings. We are normal. We have hands. We have feet. We can walk, we can talk, we have needs just like everyone else. Don't be afraid of us - we are all the same."
Nelson Mandela referred to Nkosi as an"icon of the struggle for life."



At the conference, he scolded South African president, Thabo Mbeki, on his government's inability to provide drugs, which resulted in the miffed president to leave during his speech. He later told the BBC:
"I feel like I am going to die quickly, like my mother did, very soon. But at least she got to be a grown-up. I hate having this disease."

Together with his foster mother Gail Johnson, Nkosi founded a refuge for HIV positive mothers and their children, Nkosi's Haven, in Johannesburg. In November 2005, Gail represented Nkosi when he posthumously received the International Children's Peace Prize from the hands of Mikhail Gorbachev. Nkosi's Haven received the US $100,000 prize money from the KidsRights Foundation.

Nkosi's mantra is something which every global citizen, not only South Africans, should follow:
"Do all you can / with what you have / in the time you have / in the place you are." - Nkosi Johnson

His death was a tragedy which left the world heartbroken and South Africa without a hero.
His death has left a void in the campaign against the HIV/AIDS disease.

Ashley Callie

Ashley Callie was a South African actress best known for her role as Leone Haines in Isidingo (from 2000 to 2008). Callie died on 15 February 2008 as a result of head injuries from a head-on car accident in Johannesburg, South Africa on 8 February 2008.

Born in Johannesburg on 19 May 1973, Ashley studied at Wits University and received a BA Honours degree in Dramatic Arts.
Her performance in Isidingo recently won Ashley the Best Actress award at the South African Film and Television Awards. When she was not in front of the cameras, Ashley was also co-owner of La Vista Social Club in Melville, Johannesburg.

On 15 Narch 2007, Callie told Top Billing magazine that playing the role of Lee Haines on Isidingo had been a life long ambition of hers. She had been a fan of the show ever since it first aired in 1998. In this interview, she explains how she does not enjoy the fame that comes with her celebrity status, and that her family is an extremely important part of her life. She also goes on to explain why her character, Lee Haines, is not at all like her.

In 2006, she won the SAFTA (South African Film and Television Awards) award for best actress, for her role in Isidingo. The awards took place on 28 October 2006 (Who plays Barker Haines.On 29 February 2008, Callie won the Mzansi Star Actress award at the inaugural Stars of Mzansi awards ceremony, held in Johannesburg. The award was accepted on her behalf by Robert Whitehead in Isidingo), and Steven Miyambo (Who plays Orlando).

After her death, South African Minister of Arts and Culture, Dr Pallo Jordan has called Callie the image of the new South Africa:

"We were truly blessed to have a young, gifted, South African who stretched all the sinews in her body to reflect the ideals of a united, non-racial and non-sexist society... the ministry is deeply shocked and saddened"

The greatest tragedy is the loss of a talent and potential to rival the best in the international arena.

Allison Botha

Alison was born and raised in the seaside city of Port Elizabeth. Her leadership qualities started showing in her youth, she was Head Girl of Collegiate High School for Girls in 1985. After studying at the Port Elizabeth Technikon for a further year, she worked for three years before travelling to London in 1990. She spent four years overseas working and travelling. On her return to South Africa, she took up a position as an Insurance Broker with a Port Elizabeth business.

In December 1994, Alison was abducted outside her home by two men who raped, stabbed and disembowelled her, finally slashing her throat 16 times to make sure she was dead. No-one could have believed that anyone with such severe injuries could live.

But Alison defied death. And more than that, she denied her attackers the satisfaction of destroying her life.

The courage which allowed her to move beyond severe physical and emotional trauma and to turn a devastating experience into something life-affirming and strong, is an inspiration to people everywhere.

The Noordhoek Ripper trial, as it was called, captured the country's interest with its confessions of Satanism and its exposure of random evil.

One of the first South African rape survivors to speak to the media, Alison has in recent years spoken to thousands of people around the country and abroad.

Alison's story "I HAVE LIFE - Alison's Journey", was one of the first books of its kind to be published in South Africa, a country where rape statistics are among the highest in the world and is an invaluable survival guide.

It has been classified as a best-seller in South Africa and has continued to be so since publication.

Alison has been speaking on the professional speaking circuit for several years. Her aim to 'make a difference' has been overwhelming as she has spoken to countless thousands of people which include large business corporations, women and social groups as well as several schools. She has addressed international audiences in over 20 different countries including the USA, Australia, Europe, Asia and Africa.

Audiences sit in rapt attention as Alison speaks of the brutally cruel torture to which she was subjected and how she has overcome the challenge of that experience by applying her own ABC - Attitude, Belief and Choice.

Alison wrote another book: "For the tough times: Alison's Survivors".

The manner in which she survived, her inner strength and determination, her lack of bitterness, and her serenity and humility captured the attention of the whole of South Africa. In 1995, she was awarded the prestigious Rotarian Paul Harris Award for 'Courage Beyond the Norm'. In the same year she was the first recipient of the Femina magazine's 'Woman of Courage' award. She was also chosen as Port Elizabeth's Citizen of the Year at a glittering ceremony.

Christiaan Barnard

Christiaan Neethling Barnard was a cardiac surgeon, famous for performing the world's first successful human-to-human heart transplant.

Christiaan Neethling Barnard was born in the small town of Beaufort West, in the Western Cape, South Africa, on November 8, 1922. Son of a church pastor, one of his four brothers died from heart disease at the age of five, which probably had an influence in Chris' choice of profession.

In 1946 he graduated (MB, ChB) from the University of Cape Town. This was followed by his internship at the Groote Schuur Hospital.
He then served as a family physician in the Western Cape until 1951. He then moved back to Cape Town and worked at the City Hospital as a Senior Resident Medical Officer, and in the Department of Medicine at the Groote Schuur Hospital as a Registrar.
In 1953, he received the degree of Master of Medicine (MMed) from the University of Cape Town, and in the same year he was awarded a MD (Doctor of Medicine) degree from the same university for a dissertation on tuberculous meningitis. He was then appointed Registrar (resident) in the Department of Surgery, at the Groote Schuur Hospital.
In 1956, he received a scholarship for a two-year postgraduate training in cardiothoracic surgery at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, USA. In 1958 he received a Master of Science in Surgery.

Following the first successful kidney transplant in 1953, in the United States, Barnard performed the first kidney transplant in South Africa in 1959. Barnard experimented for several years with animal heart transplants. More than 50 dogs received transplanted hearts, but typically died shortly afterward. With the availability of new breakthroughs introduced by several pioneers, amongst them Norman Shumway, several surgical teams were in a position to prepare for a human heart transplant. Barnard had a patient willing to undergo the procedure, but as with other surgeons, he needed a suitable donor.

Barnard performed the world's first human heart transplant operation on 3 December 1967, in an operation assisted by his brother, Marius Barnard, lasting nine hours and using a team of thirty people. The patient, Louis Wahkansky, was a 55 year old grocer, suffering from diabetes and an incurable heart disease.
The donor heart came from a young woman, Denise Darvall, who had been killed in a 2 December 1967 road accident while crossing a street in Cape Town. After securing permission from Darvall's father to use her heart, Barnard performed the transplant.

Washkansky survived the operation and lived for eighteen(18) days. However, he succumbed to pneumonia induced by the immunosuppressive drugs he was taking.

Barnard became an international superstar overnight and was celebrated around the world for his daring accomplishment. He was later to be also the first to perform a heterotopic heart transplant, an operation that he himself devised.
Barnard continued to perform heart transplants. A transplant operation was conducted on 2 January 1968, and the patient, Philip Blaiberg, survived for 19 months. Mrs Dorothy Fisher was given a new heart in 1969 and became Barnard's longest surviving patient. She lived for 24 years after the transplant.
He was also the first surgeon to attempt xenograft transplantation in a human patient, while attempting to save the life of a young girl unable to leave artificial life support after a second aortic valve replacement. He was later accused of wrongdoing by her parents.

He was loved by his patients throughout the world, hundreds of whom were treated free of charge, and hated by many others who were jealous of his instant success. He was accused by some colleagues in the profession of "stealing" the idea and the opportunity to perform the first heart transplant. Often considered a spoiled and arrogant personality, he was also regarded as kind and considerate by others.

Barnard was an outspoken opponent of South Africa's laws of apartheid, and was not afraid to criticize his nation's government, although he had to temper his remarks to some extent in order to travel abroad.
Rather than leaving his homeland, he used his fame in order to campaign for a change in the law. After Denise Darvall provided the means for the very first heart transplant, Barnard transplanted her kidney into a 10 year old mixed race boy. The donor for the second heart transplant was also of mixed race.
Christian's brother, Dr. Marius Barnard, went into politics, and was elected to the legislature on an anti-apartheid platform. However, he later claimed that the reason he never won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was probably because he was a "white South African".

In 1983, because of the rheumatoid arthritis that affected his hands and thus prevented him from operating, he retired as Head of the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery in Cape Town. He then spent two years as the Scientist-In-Residence at the Oklahoma Transplantation Institute in the USA and acted as consultant for other institutions.

He divided the remainder of his years between Austria, where he established the Chris Barnard Foundation, dedicated to helping underprivileged children throughout the world, and his game-farm in Beaufort West, in South Africa. He wrote a cardiology text, and several novels, including a thriller about organ transplantation. Earlier, he had penned his autobiography, One Life, which sold worldwide and whose royalties he generously donated to the Chris Barnard Fund, for the support of research in heart disease and organ transplantation in Cape Town. Twenty years later, he traced his subsequent life in The Second Life.

Chris Barnard died in Cyprus, where he was on holiday, on 2 September 2001, shortly before he was to complete 79 years of life. An autopsy revealed his death to be caused by an acute asthma attack.

Nelson Mandela

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (born 18 July 1918) was the 11th President of South Africa, the first to be elected in fully representative democratic elections. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist and leader of the African National Congress. He spent 27 years in prison, much of it on Robben Island, on convictions for crimes that included sabotage committed while he spearheaded the struggle against apartheid.



Among opponents of apartheid in South Africa and internationally, he became a symbol of freedom and equality, while the apartheid government and nations sympathetic to it condemned him and the ANC as communists and terrorists.
Following his release from prison on 11 February 1990, his switch to a policy of reconciliation and negotiation helped lead the transition to multi-racial democracy in South Africa. Since the end of apartheid, he has been widely praised, even by former opponents.

Mandela has received more than 100 awards over four decades, most notably the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1993. He is currently a celebrated elder statesman who continues to voice his opinion on topical issues. In South Africa he is often known as Madiba, an honorary title adopted by elders of Mandela's clan. The title has come to be synonymous with Nelson Mandela.

Mandela has frequently credited Mahatma Gandhi for being a major source of inspiration in his life, both for the philosophy of non-violence and for facing adversity with dignity.

Since stepping down as president in 1999, Mr Mandela has become South Africa's highest-profile ambassador, campaigning against HIV/Aids and securing his country's right to host the 2010 football World Cup.
Mr Mandela - diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2001 - has also been actively involved in peace negotiations in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi and other African countries.

Over the last five years his public appearances have gradually become less frequent and mostly connected with the work of the Mandela Foundation, a charitable fund that he founded.

Since officially retiring five years ago (aged 85), Mandela has become an advocate for a variety of social and human rights organisations. He has expressed his support for the international Make Poverty History movement.
Mandela appeared in a televised advertisement for the 2006 Winter Olympics, and was quoted for the International Olympic Committee's Celebrate Humanity campaign:

For seventeen days, they are roommates.
For seventeen days, they are soulmates.
And for twenty-two seconds, they are competitors.
Seventeen days as equals. Twenty-two seconds as adversaries.
What a wonderful world that would be.
That's the hope I see in the Olympic Games.

The Nelson Mandela Invitational charity golf tournament, hosted by ,Gary Player, has raised over R20 million for children's charities since its inception in 2000. This annual special event has become South Africa's most successful charitable sports gathering and benefits both the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund and Gary Player Foundation equally for various children's causes around the world.

In July 2007, Nelson Mandela announced the formation of The Elders, a group of world leaders who will contribute their wisdom and independent leadership to address the world's toughest problems.

"This group can speak freely and boldly, working both publicly and behind the scenes on whatever actions need to be taken," Mandela commented. "Together we will work to support courage where there is fear, foster agreement where there is conflict, and inspire hope where there is despair."


One of Mandela's primary commitments has been to the fight against AIDS and in 2003, he lent his support to the 46664 AIDS fundraising campaign, named after his prison number.
Possibly his most noteworthy intervention of recent years came early in 2005, following the death of his only son, Makgatho.
In a country where taboos still surround talking about the Aids epidemic, Mr Mandela announced that his son had died of Aids, and urged South Africans talk about Aids "so to make it appear like a normal illness".