Impact of Personal Experience on Sickle Cell Disease Awareness

TLDR

• Families carried shame instead of support, and many people believed that a child born with sickle cell disease would never live beyond the age of 18.
• The article did not earn me an individual nomination during my first participation in the 16th Excellence in Journalism Awards Tanzania (EJAT 2025), but something even more meaningful happened.
• She died from sickle cell disease at a time when the illness was wrapped in fear, myths and silence.
• In many communities, sickle cell disease was seen as a curse rather than a genetic condition.
• They became even more personal because sickle cell disease was not a distant issue.