Mara Kumbweza is an extraordinary woman. She is an extremely articulate, intellectual, well informed, empathetic and strong leader who inspires the respect and admiration of all who meet her. She is a political activist, a feminist, a community leader, an NGO leader and a person living with HIV.
Mara has lived in Ngwenya, Malawi for the past 20 years and is the president of Paradiso, an NGO that works with people living with HIV at the community level and which strengthens them so that their voices can be heard. She started Paradiso when she found out that she was HIV positive and that there was a great deal of ignorance about the disease in her community.
Mara is also a founding member of the Coalition Of Women Living With HIV/AIDS (COWLHA). COWLHA is the first platform that has created the space for women living with HIV to voice their problems. In Malawi, it is common for women to be blamed for the HIV infection and many have no means of supporting themselves. COWLHA, a partner of One World Action, supports women living with HIV to empower themselves and resist discrimination.
Mara Kumbweza was a well known figure in Malawian politics. Her political acumen and leadership calibre were well known and she became a key figure in the United Democratic Front (UDF), then the ruling party in Malawi. She went from strength to strength within the Party and was soon nominated as a candidate for the 1999 parliamentary elections. Mara was at this time also working with the International Planned Parenthood Forum (IPPF).
It was a busy and stressful time for Mara and she was quite unwell during this period. She became worried and got herself tested for HIV in early 1999 and found out that she was positive. Mara’s husband had died earlier in a traffic accident and he was never tested. She suspects that she must have got the infection from contaminated blood transfusions that she had during childbirth.
Mara was not sure how to handle her HIV status at first. She kept quiet about it for a while but the pressure of dealing with the situation in silence was too much for her to bear and she decided to disclose her status to UDF.
UDF reacted in a manner that Mara did not expect. Mara was an influential person in the party, one of their rising stars. She was sure that she would be able to garner support from within the party, especially since she was infected with HIV and could be an example to others who were also infected. “I believed that I would be held up to give others hope, to show that being HIV positive did not have to mean being excluded from political activities and leadership positions,” she recalls. 
Mara was extremely disappointed. After she disclosed her status, there was a wall of silence from the party. There was no official response but she found out that certain members had started campaigning against her. She also observed that many political candidates were dying of AIDS and that this was not acknowledged by the UDF. She felt compelled to start campaigning for all political aspirants and leaders to undergo voluntary testing. This was not the official party stance and it further exacerbated her situation within the party. She was dropped as a candidate during the primaries. This was a heavy blow to Mara and she decided to leave UDF in late 1999.
Mara joined a new party, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), as National Youth Coordinator in early 2000, when the NDA was still in its formative stage. She played a crucial role in introducing the NDA to the central region of Malawi and was also able to mobilise funding from external sources for various youth-related activities.
This made Mara a valuable person within the party but like her experience in the UDF, her stature did not shield her from discrimination. Rumours of her HIV status reached party leaders and she was questioned about it. When she admitted to it, she was immediately relieved of all her responsibilities within the party on the pretext of her being ill and physically unable to work. They ignored her assertion that she was now undergoing treatment and that she was quite capable of carrying on with her duties. They were unable to eject her from the party as the flows of funds remained tied to her. Mara left the NDA in complete disappointment.
Very few professionals, politicians and influential persons were coming out in the open about their HIV status at that time. (Even today this rarely happens.) There was a lot of ignorance about the disease and people were running scared. In 2001 she lost her job at IPPF and this was the ultimate shock for Mara. According to her, “the last thing that I had expected was for a NGO to discriminate against me because of my HIV status”.
Mara is so jaded by her experiences in politics that she has vowed never to return. She still maintains her political networks and tries to use them to persuade other politicians to be open about their HIV status. She feels that the more powerful and influential people come out in the open about their HIV status, the more it will provide protection for the very poor. She strongly believes that HIV positive women and men should be encouraged and supported with funds and transport to participate in politics so that their voices can be heard.
Mara believes that HIV/AIDS in Malawi cannot be tackled just by activities such as condom distribution or passing discriminatory laws such as mandatory testing of pregnant women. For the women of Malawi to be safe from the virus, more and more men need to be strong and brave about getting tested voluntarily and undergoing treatment. She argues that men must learn to control their sexual urges and not have multiple partners and that they should be truthful to their partners.
" I feel very strongly that unless women’s rights are respected and become central to any HIV/AIDS plans and interventions, HIV/AIDS in Malawi will predominantly continue to have a ‘woman’s face’."
By , Governance Policy Co-ordinator