A Voice to the Voiceless

By Nontokozo Ndlovu, 1st year MDP student

Nono in placement

My placement is with the Botswana Network on Ethics, Law and HIV/AIDS (BONELA) located in Gaborone, Botswana. BONELA is a human rights organization whose mission is “Working to ensure Protection, Promotion and Fulfilment of the Right to Health in Botswana.” The focus of the organization is help prevent the spread and infection of HIV, TB, STI’s, by addressing stigma and discrimination through community engagements, capacity building, research, legal aid and strategic impact litigation amongst others.

While health is at the core of their agenda, they work to ensure that human rights are upheld in Botswana. BONELA’s vision is to make the right to health a reality in Botswana. This is a challenge because socio-economic rights are not enshrined in the Constitution and any protection of those rights is dependent on the Government of the day (BONELA Annual Report 2017). Thus, BONELA aims to protect the people of Botswana by advocating for the inclusion of socio-economic rights in the constitution including the right to health. 

My field placement is in BONELA's legal department which focuses on advocacy for human rights violations, policy amendments and the constitutionalizing of basic rights of the people of Botswana especially the right to health. Public health has proven to be much broader than what I had initially thought. I had thought that everyone in Botswana had access to health care services but from the experience of being with BONELA I see that people still struggle to access healthcare facilities. I now know that there is need to amend the constitution, and include the right to health as it is a human right that protects the people and should be upheld at all times, so to ensure that a person’s health and well-being is not adversely affected.

From BONELA's Facebook page

While serving in the legal department, my work focused more on binding law, the penal code and the Public Health Act 2013. The time I have been here, I have been exposed to a lot of things which have been informing and life impacting.