Juliet Lubega

A PIONEERING Islington health worker who promoted HIV prevention in African communities has passed away aged 60.

Juliet Lubega was “one of the first groups of Ugandans to move to the UK” and buy a house in the 1990s.

She bought a three-bed in Haringey. She worked as an African Communities Programme Manager for Camden and Islington NHS from 1994 until 2007 when she had to stop working due to cancer.

Despite having no family or friends in the UK, she built a strong community around her and raised her two children, Martha Mugerwa, 33, and Timothy Mugerwa, 23, on her own.

When she wasn’t at work she could be found watching Spurs matches, singing, dancing with friends in local dance halls, writing poems or making cauliflower cheese.

Ms Mugerwa said: “Mum was loud. She was cheeky. She took no nonsense but at the same time she was very very, very selfless.”

Ms Lubega studied Social Work at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda, and then worked for the Red Cross before she migrated to London. There she did a masters in social research methods.

“She was a big, big believer in education,” Ms Mugerwa said. “She’s paid for so many kids’ school fees in Uganda [where education is not free] she had three siblings in Uganda, and they all passed away. She pays for every single one of their kids to go to school until they graduate.”

Ms Mugerwa worked for the NHS because she was “passionate about health and helping people”. Her daughter added: “I think coming to the country as a minority, she wanted to support her community.”

She helped organise the first National African HIV Prevention Conference in 2000, which then became an annual event.

She was also involved in setting up the Camden and Islington Health Promotion Forum and was a trustee of different charities.

A former colleague, Daisy Byaruhanga, who worked as a health promotion advocate for the charity Innovative Vision Organisation, said: “Juliet really expressed so many issues that the African community was battling with at that time, especially in the early 90s.

“There was a lot of confusion around HIV and AIDS and there was a lot of stigma in the community as well as a lot of taboo discussing sex. But Juliet made it so easy for the community to discuss these matters and did so via a very simple, joking way.”

Ms Byaruhanga added that back then “many Africans were turning up to hospitals with a very late stage of AIDS and they would die, without realising they had been living with HIV for 10 years”.

She said: “If you were positive, people thought you were a womaniser or a prostitute. In those early days families turned against those who were positive because they feared they would infect them if they shared the same cups. So there was ignorance around how it was being transmitted.

“Also there was uncertainty around immigration – people feared they would be deported if they tested positive for HIV. It took brave people like Juliet to point out those issues.”

When Ms Lubega got cancer she stopped working for the NHS. She later made a full recovery, and turned her attention to creative writing, taking courses at City Lit. But she later fell into ill health again after suffering from two strokes and heart failure.

After contracting an infection, she passed away on July 4 surrounded by family. Her family have started a fundraiser to pay for the funeral. You can donate here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/in-memory-of-our-beloved-mum-juliet-lubega