The University of Botswana through the HIV/AIDS Coordination Office and in collaboration with the Gaborone District AIDS Coordination Office as well as the Botswana Christian AIDS Intervention Programme, has honoured Professor Musa W. Dube for her relentless activism, teaching, researching and coaching on issues of faith and HIV/AIDS. Professor Dube was honoured during the commemoration of the Month of Prayer at the University of Botswana Conference Center.
The event was held to enable participants to collectively reflect on HIV/AIDS and seek God’s guidance and strength. In addition, it was to reflect upon the Christian community’s response to the situation while appreciating Batswana’s efforts besides celebrating Professor Dube’s contribution to the global struggle against HIV/AIDS.
Professor Dube, who became the first Motswana Humboldtian awardee in 2011 is a biblical scholar. She studied the New Testament at the University of Durham (UK) and the University of Vanderbilt (USA), graduating in 1990 and 1997 respectively. Professor Dube has also been a visiting scholar at the Union Theological Seminary, USA (2010) and the University of Bamberg (2011). She has served in several institutions, including World Council of Churches (Geneva) and Scripps College (California).
Her research interests include: gender, postcolonial translation and HIV/AIDS studies. In 2017, Professor Dube was honoured with the Gutenberg Teaching Award 2017 from Gutenberg University Germany while in 2018 she was awarded an honorary Doctorate by Stellenbosch University in recognition of her research, teaching and community service on issues related to faith/Bible and HIV/AIDS.
Speaking at the event, Professor Dube recalled the gloomy period of the 1990s and the first decade of the new millennium. She said it felt more like families were disappearing wrapped away in a heavy fog. Indeed millions of people were getting infected and dying due to HIV/AIDS. Millions of children were orphaned and many more people living with HIV/AIDS while confronted by stigma and discrimination. Professor Dube noted that the emergence HIV/AIDS challenged scientific knowledge, cultures, practices, ethics, and institutions, calling for a review and new knowledge understanding and practices.
She recalled that it was during her PhD studies in the 1990s that Botswana was reported to be the hardest hit country in the world. One of her friends lost her battle to HIV/AIDS and thousands of miles away from home and grieving alone, Professor Dube turned to writing short stories, poems and prayers.
Upon graduating in 1997, and with her collection of poems, songs and prayers Professor Dube’s plan was to produce an album to support orphaned children with her interdenominational choir, Hope for Today, and a documentary video on children orphaned by HIV/AIDS. She wrote a proposal, hired a student assistant with her own money, to assist her to raise funds from different companies in Gaborone. However, her efforts yielded nothing.
The World Council of Churches would later pick her proposal and finance the production of a Setswana/English documentary video entitled Africa Praying; Orphans Need Love. The documentary was a teaching tool for churches, sensitizing them on the plight of orphaned children and what they could do. The video was launched in Gaborone, collaboration with the Botswana Council of Churches, while the World Council of Churches featured it at the 2000 AIDS International Conference in Durban, South Africa and in many other churches.
Initially, Faith- Based Organisations (FBOs) including the church, appeared to be disinterested even though they were recognised as communal institutions that were strategically placed to reach out to the devastated families. However, the infected and affected communities could not reach them to seek refuge, support and solidarity. As such, much was needed to empower FBOs to become compassionate communities that identified with the HIV/AIDS impacted communities. .
The World Council of Churches quickly roped Professor Dube to lead a number of scholars to revise and complete an HIV/AIDS curriculum for theologians. The completed version consisted of background, describing the challenge of HIV/AIDS in faith institutes as well as five sections dealing with reading the bible from an HIV context; doing theology form and HIV context; social justice in the HIV and AIDS context; African indigenous religions, Islam and HIV and AIDS; and proposal writing and project management, she said.
The World Council of Churches also engaged Professor Dube to train academic theologians and Faith-based organisations to mainstream HIV/AIDS in their programs. That meant Professor Dube undertaking training of trainers continent-wide for three years. She also did the training in Europe and America. The training precipitated a demand for theologically specific material whereupon she mobilised scholars through African academic associations to produce textbooks for FBOs and academic teaching.
The books focused on how the bible, or any form of faith could deal with HIV/AIDS prevention, stigma and care giving. Prof Dube’s training of trainers and production of relevant materials greatly assisted both academic institutions and FBOs to respond constructively to HIV/AIDS in Africa and globally.
Meanwhile, the Vice Chancellor, Professor David Norris, applauded Professor Dube for her relentlessness and due diligence towards HIV/AIDS research. He said Professor Dube set her mind on something, believed it and did it. “As a University we say that whatever we do, let it have societal impact and developmental impact,” said Prof Norris. He said what Professor Dube was doing had direct positive impact on people’s lives and people could learn a lot from her.