Tlou, Obama honoured
| Monday May 12, 2014 14:58
Tlou, a member of Dillard’s class of 1977, was honoured for exemplifying the ideals of the university; of applying knowledge, research, creativity, and the highest ethical standards to improve the human condition.
The University says Tlou’s liberal arts education and her bachelor of science degree in nursing prepared her well for a distinguished professional career as an educator, health worker, international servant, a legislator, a regional director of a United Nations entity, actress, and most importantly, to serve as a servant leader in Botswana and Africa, reads part of the citation for the honorary degree.
Tlou was a member of the University of Botswana faculty for more than 34 years, where she earned the highest professorial rank, Professor of Nursing.
At UB Tlou served as head of the department of Nursing Education, HIV/AIDS Coordinator, and as a successful grants writer whose proposal secured millions of dollars for research. The US National Institutes of Health awarded her a multi-million dollar research grant and was a Kellogg Foundation Fellow, which is one of the most prestigious fellowships in the nation.
Her extra mural accomplishments were equally remarkable: she has served, for example, as director of the World Health Organisation Collaborating Center for Nursing and Midwifery Development in Primary Health Care for Anglophone Africa. She left UB in 2010 to become regional director of the United Nations Joint Programme on AIDS (UNAIDS) for Eastern and Southern Africa.
She is known across the African continent and around the world as a successful educator, administrator, and servant leader in the AIDS response through the development and implementation of innovative prevention and treatment programs, greater access to health care and information, especially to young people.
Since 1985, Tlou has been on the battlefield against HIV-AIDS. One victory transformed the social structures, norms, and gender roles in Botswana. As a member of the Botswana Parliament and Minister of Health, she helped to create legislation that protected, empowered, and enabled women to discuss and negotiate safer sex with their husbands and partners. The legislations and laws that protected women contributed to a dramatic reduction in HIV transmission in Botswana and the Southern Africa region.
Tlou’s work and research changed opinions and reduced stigma about people living with HIV. International organisations such as the World Health Organisation and the United Nations cite her work in Botswana, which has had one of the biggest declines in new HIV infections in Africa, as substantial evidence that the application of interdisciplinary perspectives and the elimination of subordinate gender roles can reduce transmission and infection.
She also represented Botswana at the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing and she was appointed, as eminent person, to the United Nation Secretary General’s task force on Women, Girls, and HIV/AIDS in Southern Africa.