About Wola Nani

Wola Nani, Xhosa for ‘we embrace and develop one another’, was established in 1994 as a non-profit organisation to help bring relief to the communities hardest hit by the HIV crisis. Formed against a background of economic curtailment on welfare spending and a huge increase in the number of HIV and AIDS cases, Wola Nani initiated programmes to help HIV+ people in the local community cope with the emotional and financial strains brought about by HIV and AIDS.

Focusing on the needs of HIV+ women and their children, Wola Nani’s services aim to ease the burden of HIV by enabling people living with the virus to respond positively and attain the skills to develop their own coping strategies. Historically disenfranchised, disempowered and marginalised, women bear the brunt of the national pandemic. They have little voice to articulate their needs or to claim the services on which their survival depends.

With chronic unemployment and widespread discrimination against people living with HIV in South Africa, one of the biggest problems Wola Nani seeks to overcome is the need for people to generate income. Its Income Generation programme offers people living with HIV/AIDS the opportunity to earn a regular and sustainable income to deal with practical anxieties like feeding their families.