AHF carries a strong legacy of partnering with prominent and beloved leaders and experts in the public health field and beyond, collaborating with celebrities such as super-star basketball player Magic Johnson and legendary singer Patti LaBelle. This summer’s Olympic Games saw AHF continue to work with “Africa’s Fastest Man” Ferdinand Omanyala as he ran the 100-meter track event in Paris and promoted global public health and the message “HIV/AIDS is not over”.
Omanyala is a Kenyan sprinter who runs the fastest 100-meter dash in Africa and is the twelfth fastest in the world for the event. He joined forces with AHF in 2022 as a staunch supporter of the Vaccinate Our World (VOW) campaign and filmed an eye-catching promotional video with him on a racing track encouraging people to get vaccinated.
The partnership has continued for the past two years with Omanyala participating in many events led by the AHF Kenya team and the AHF Africa Bureau, including exciting actions such as judging an art contest for International Condom Day, a social media campaign calling on support for the Global Fund, and wearing AHF-branded merchandise in this year’s Olympic Games.
“This [campaign] is important for all Africans, and I’m excited to partner with AHF in increasing awareness across the region… Because in an interconnected world, the pandemic has made one fact perfectly clear: No nation is safe if even one nation is left unprotected.” Commented Omanyala when he first joined AHF under the VOW campaign.
AHF’s life-saving, on-the-ground work would not be complete without our steadfast high-level advocacy across 47 countries, five continents, and in hundreds of local, national, and international governmental offices. By inviting household names and popular faces to participate and add to our efforts, we reach countless people that would otherwise be unaware and we make HIV/AIDS advocacy and global public health at the forefront of the media.
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