Princess Kasune Zulu: Zambian educator spreads the word about HIV/AIDS

WHILE in the company of Princess Kasune Zulu of Zambia, a bronze-skinned beauty wearing flowing turquoise-colored native dress, matching head wrap and a dazzling smile, you sense the presence of royalty.

The princess, who has royal lineage, is an HIV/AIDS educator who is spreading a global message of hope about the disease, despite (or because of) her own HIV-positive status. During a Chicago tour sponsored by World Vision, a Christian relief and development organization, she was eager to discuss health problems in her native country, where 1.2 million individuals have been infected with HIV/AIDS. Those are the official numbers, but in actuality, HIV/AIDS has affected many more, creating hundreds of thousands of orphaned children and many desperate women.

Princess Zulu lost a sister, a brother and both of her parents to the disease. When she decided to be tested for HIV in 1997, her doctor informed her that she would need to get permission from her husband first, which was the custom in her country. "That was the beginning of my awareness of women's issues," she says recalling her husband's reluctance to allow her and the couple's two daughters, Joy, 3, and Faith, 1 1/2 to be tested. Both girls were HIV-negative and remain so today. Princess Zulu, however, learned that she was HIV-positive. Nevertheless, she found herself surprisingly relieved. A born-again Christian, she felt that her mission in life--to educate others about the disease--had been revealed to her. Almost nonstop, she has been speaking out about the illness, even using household funds to help children with the disease in her village.

In the midst of her efforts to tell others of the illness, she says her husband, who is HIV-positive as well, was threatening her with divorce because of her advocacy work. "That scared me," Princess Zulu admits. She recalls that she feared losing her children and returning to her village with no income of her own. "He made me see how desperate I was and how dependent I was on him. But it made me stronger inwardly, and I found other ways of [helping others]."

One of the ways involved dressing up as "a commissioned sex worker" in Zambia and hitchhiking along the highways, trying to be picked up by high-risk truck drivers. The princess told them about the spread of HIV/AIDS and about her own diagnosis. She knew that truck drivers were at high risk for HIV because many would sleep with dozens of prostitutes, some HIV-positive, during their trips, then go home and infect their wives.

Today, Princess Zulu talks to presidents and heads of state around the world about AIDS/HIV and what can and should be done. In addition, she also hosts a nationally syndicated radio program in Zambia, and she is working on her book, I Will Not Die Before I'm Dead! "There is hope in the midst of all this," she says. "We are not just numbers or statistics, we are real people with dreams and visions."

For more information and a Q&A with Princess Kasune Zulu, go to www.ebony.com

COPYRIGHT 2005 Johnson Publishing Co.
COPYRIGHT 2005 Gale Group