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Nsofwa Petronella Sampa was born in 1992 in Zambia. She is an HIV activist, a Mandela Washington Fellowship, YALI participant and a PEPFAR beneficiary. After discovering her health status as being HIV positive, Nsofwa began to advocate for persons living with HIV/AIDS. She is a trained clinical psychological counsellor and her work focuses on working with people living with HIV and disabilities.

Early Life
Nsofwa Petronella was born in Zambia. Her father died in 1994 when Nsofwa was 2 years old and a few years later her mother passed in 2002 when Nsofwa was only 10 years old. Nsofwa then moved to her uncle's house where he took her under his care as her guardian. Under her uncle's care, Nsofwa took medication everyday without knowledge of why she was taking the medication or what the medication was for. Her uncle did not give her any reason for her medication and the family did not discuss this matter. Nsofwa did not understand why she had to take medication whilst her cousins living in the same house did not do the same. In 2002, she stumbled upon her medical file that revealed life changing information stating that she was HIV positive. Unbeknown to her, she contracted the virus at birth. She learned later that her mother died due to HIV/AIDS related illness.

Education and Career
Nsofwa attended Mary Queen of Peace for her primary education and later was enrolled in a boarding school for her secondary education. Whilst in boarding school, a peer discovered that Nsofwa was on ARV treatment and soon the entire school was alerted. This prompted Nsofwa to go into a deep pool of depression and she discarded her medication. Her health began to deteriorate and she had to leave school.

Living with this knowledge was not easy for Nsofwa or her family. She lost hope and made the decision to stop taking her medication because she wanted to die. Her health was drastically deteriorating after 2 months of not taking the medication. She was admitted in hospital and was put on the second line of ART due to her extremely low CD4 count.