Talia Connery is still only a student, but that hasn’t stopped her from trying to make a difference in public health.

The 24-year-old Rye resident is in her junior year as a nursing student at the University of New Hampshire, yet she has already been to Guatemala for a brief humanitarian visit providing nursing care and has worked in a clinic in Lawrence, Mass., with babies prenatally-infected with AIDS.

Now, funded primarily through a grant from UNH’s International Research Opportunity Program (IROP), Connery is going to spend nine weeks volunteering throughout the country of Namibia with Omebetja Yehinga, an AIDS education through the arts program. Her role includes teaching and humanitarian work.
“I will do AIDS education, teaching preventive methods, and they hand out condoms as part of the program,” Connery says. Her goal is to bring 5,000 condoms donated from our community to theirs. UNH has helped kick off her campaign by donating 1,000 condoms already.

Connery will be staying in hostels throughout Namibia, a country that has endured a century of ruthless Colonialism, decades of apartheid, a bitter struggle for independence, poverty and now the AIDS epidemic.
According to AVERT, an international HIV and AIDS charity based in the United Kingdom, with the aim of AVERTing HIV and AIDS worldwide, Africa is the region of the world that is most affected by HIV and AIDS.

An estimated 25.8 million people were living with HIV at the end of 2005 and approximately 3.1 million new infections occurred during that year.

In just the past year the epidemic has claimed the lives of an estimated 2.4 million people in this region. More than 12 million children have been orphaned by AIDS.

Connery is leaving on Monday, June 5. To help out, donations can be sent the Condoms for Africa, c/o PO Box 692, Rye Beach, NH 03871. Connery can be reached at This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it