Aids activist is passionate believer in social justice
Larissa Klazinga is the regional policy and advocacy manager for the AIDS Healthcare Foundation
Tell me about the work you do.
I am the Southern Africa policy and advocacy manager for the Aids Healthcare Foundation, the largest nonprofit HIV treatment provider in the world. The organisation operates in 39 countries. An average day includes interactions with colleagues from across Africa and around the world, working with medical professionals, social workers, activists from other organisations, journalists and, most importantly, the people who depend on AHF for treatment — our patients.
How did you end up doing what you do?
I have always been interested in social justice and human rights issues. I have a political studies degree, was involved in student politics at university and became an executive committee member of the National Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Equality, working with activists for equality for the LGBTQI community. I became a Treatment Action Campaign member during the days of Aids denialism and was on the national steering committee for the One in Nine Campaign to support women who report rape. Inevitably, activism became my career.
What are some of the issues you deal with at work?
You have to enjoy working with people to do this kind of work. I meet people from all walks of life and have to constantly strive for common ground in order to be effective. Long, irregular working hours also come with the territory, along with lots of travel. You have to be resilient, able to empathise and, in equal measure, able to compartmentalise, because the reality of HIV includes illhealth, gender-based violence and rape, homelessness, stigma and depression.
What did you want to be as a child?
A journalist. I loved reading and writing, and was interested in the world. It seemed like the only way to change things. Being an activist wasn’t a career option growing up in a small South African town in the 1980s.
What do you love most about your work?
I meet and work with the most incredible people, and I get to help people every day. It is an enormous privilege to work for an organisation whose sole purpose is to save lives. This job allows me to create spaces where people can speak their truth, learn from each other and access healing.
I genuinely care about the issues that come across my desk every day
What part of your job would readers find most surprising?
Maybe they’d be surprised at how often I cry at my desk trying to find a way to help someone; how often I talk about condoms and lubricant as a regular part of my job; or how much time I spend packing and moving boxes of T-shirts, banners and placards.
What makes you good at your job?
I genuinely care about the issues that come across my desk every day. I believe passionately in social justice, gender equality and access to healthcare.
What is the best career advice you have ever received, and who gave it to you?
In 1991, a politics lecturer, Marian Lacey, told me to become part of the solution; through her example she convinced me that it was possible to change the world.