Sebabatso Tsaoane
Health and Safety/Women in Uniform
Nominee's Province:
Free State
Project Name/Description:
Founder – Black Woman Arise Women’s Health Clinic
Sebabatso Tsaoane’s bar knows no barriers. The Bloemfontein-based nurse and midwife has founded an impactful NPO called Black Woman Arise Women’s Health Foundation, aimed at addressing women’s health challenges in disadvantaged communities. Funded by the Bristol Myers Squibb Foundation, the NPO collaborates with the Free State department of health to provide free cervical cancer screening services to women in disadvantaged communities.
Tsaoane’s path to sexual health and reproductive rights advocacy was fuelled by her own struggle with endometriosis, for which she didn’t get the necessary treatment in time. “This constantly inspires me to work harder to ensure that women know more about their sexual reproductive health rights,” she explains.
Tsaoane recently opened a women’s health clinic in Bloemfontein that employs three people, two of whom are on a full-time basis. The clinic is a midwife-led centre intended to offer affordable and efficient reproductive, maternal and new-born health services for modern day women and their children.
In addition to being honoured by Sunday World Unsung Heroes in 2022, she has scooped prestigious awards such as the University of the Free State’s Young Alumnus of the Year. She has also been invited to global platforms such as the International Conference on Maternal and Newborn Health and the International Confederations of Midwives’ 38th Triennial Midwifery Congress.
