Helena Nangombe

Helena Nangombe is a community expert who has worked with adolescent girls and young women on HIV and SRHR related matters in Namibia, for more than 15 years.

Leveraging her experiences as a young woman living with HIV, Helena initiated awareness raising events on HIV and the needs of girls and young women, including stigma and discrimination, within communities and at secondary schools.  Helena was nominated in 2010 as one of the global Young Women Leaders and provided access to global platforms, as part of the UNAIDS/GCWA, ICW and ATHENA Network Young Women’s Leadership Initiative. She founded a grassroot organization “Young Women Empowerment Network”, in 2013, with the aim to improve well-being and living conditions of adolescent girls and young women living with and at risk of HIV in rural North Namibia.

Earlier, Helena has worked as a part-time consultant for the UNAIDS #BeTeamWomen Facebook live platform, co-organizing information-sharing and dialogue events on HIV-related developments, as the Technical and Research Coordinator. The events covered a diversity of topics from cervical cancer, menstrual health, COVID-19, intersectionality, to women of colour in public health, and migration, all related to HIV/AIDS.  In the capacity as a community-based consultant, Helena was earlier tasked to facilitate the set-up of a community board, as part of ACT-A, to better understand and address the challenges faced by communities affected by COVID-19 and living with long-COVID.  Helena also served as the country focal point for the #WhatGirlsWant global movement, led by the ATHENA Network, to inspire real and lasting change for girls and young women in all their diversity.  Currently, Helena  is one of the civil society members of the International Steering Committee of the Robert Carr Fund, engaged in strategic direction setting for the Fund and in reviewing and endorsing proposals selected for funding, the latter as part of the budget sub-committee.  As assistant-coordinator of the Sam Nujoma Multi-purpose Centre, Helena continues to work with the communities of adolescent girls and young women to ensure the availability of correct information and to support girls in making informed decisions on HIV prevention, sexual and reproductive health and right and management of sexual and gender-based violence.