Nonhlanhla Sephula is a single mother of three sons. They are her pride and joy. They were also her rock through the toughest journey of her life: breast cancer. Nonhli, as her friends call her, was diagnosed with breast cancer on 5 June 2021. She discovered a lump, while sitting at a restaurant with her children celebrating one of her son’s birthdays.
Nonhli made an appointment with her GP, who referred her for a mammogram and sonar test. She doesn’t have a medical aid and was shocked at the expense of a mammogram and all the tests that go with it. She also realised how little she knew about breast cancer and the hard treatment road she was going to have to walk.
One thing, however, didn’t change: her will to live for her sons. The four of them took this battle head-on and with the help of amazing doctors, surgery and radiation, Nonhli was declared cancer-free in August this year.
While on her cancer journey, Nonhli realised how many women in disadvantaged communities did not have access to proper breast cancer treatment and information – so she founded the Risima Foundation, a Non-Profit Organisation aimed at helping women who cannot afford mammograms, to receive them.
Nonhli’s Risima Foundation held a fundraiser and mobile mammogram screening day at Irene Link, on Saturday 28 October 2023 to raise enough funds to host a mobile screening day once a month and benefit women who cannot afford to pay the R950 per screening. The fundraising was done through pieces of art, drawn by her youngest son, 16-year old Mxolisi, who drew their family’s breast cancer journey.
In a bid to support the good that Nonhli is doing, Jacaranda FM’s Good Morning Angels Fund has bought one of the works of art for R25 000 – enough to fund 26 mammograms for women in need.
