I am a South African originally from the Eastern Cape Queenstown (also in South Africa) - am currently in Cape Town where I work as a Research Apprentice at the Desmond Tutu TB Centre, Social Science Department of Stellenbosch University. We mainly do research on HIV and other contextual issues under the main research study PopART HPTN071. I trained as a professional social worker from the University of Cape Town and have worked for more than ten years in the health and education and training sectors mostly on sexual, reproductive health, gender and HIV and AIDS issues. My main areas of interest are training and development, research, monitoring and evaluation, people management and development, psycho social support services provision and community development. I am a mother of a fourteen year old girl and, as I guess with most parents of adolescents, we have tensions from time to time as she thinks I am a bit boring and do not know how to choose nice clothes for her whereas I'm more concerned about boys (and plan to "strangle" them if I find them next to her). I am looking forward to a great experience and interacting with people from other parts of the world in this course. It is going to help me a great deal especially as I intend doing masters in public health in 2017.