Lerato Mbangeni
JOHANNESBURG: Millen Magese has walked runways around the world and modelled in many magazines, but her biggest goal is raising awareness about endometriosis this month.
The 34-year-old New York resident has been in South Africa to raise awareness for International Endometriosis Month.
“When you’re growing up, your mother always warns that you’ll have pains, you have to be strong and not tell anyone, but my pains were really, really bad. I could not hide it,” Magese said of her teenage years in Tanzania.
“You’re told that during your period you have to keep doing what you usually do, but I could not do anything. I couldn’t go to school or wake up and my dad had to carry me to hospital each time I had my period.”
Magese’s pains started at the age of 13. She became a model after her father told her about international supermodel Iman.
“At the age of 16, I wanted to be a leader somewhere, but I didn’t know where because I was so shy. I was shy because my neck was so long and I was too tall.
“One day my dad asked me if I know Iman and he showed me a picture of her, and told me that she’s a supermodel because she’s confident about her neck. That gave me the confidence and even though I grew up as a tomboy, I became Miss Tanzania in 2001.”
In 2004, Magese moved to South Africa and joined local modelling agency Ice Models.
“They could not understand why I would lose jobs because of my period. So my booker mentioned a doctor in Sandton. That’s when I was diagnosed with endometriosis.”
She had surgery in 2005 and has had 12 more operations since.
“It was so hard for me to understand why I had to go for so many surgeries. I don’t know if it was because of my stressful job but the growth would regrow all the time.
“Each time I saw my doctor he’d ask how I was even able to walk. I’ve had constant back pain since I was 14.”
Magese said that although she had always wanted to talk about it, the subject was taboo.
In 2013, her doctors in New York told her that both her fallopian tubes were blocked and they needed to harvest some of her eggs if she wanted to have children.
She took 63 fertility injections in 14 days.
“They only got three eggs and can only use two of them.”
This set her on the path to activism.
“If I am able to access all the best treatment and information and I am in this situation, what about a poor woman or girl who just wants to have a healthy baby?”
Local celebrities like Bonang, DJ Sbu and Nandi Ngoma have supported her campaign by tweeting “#manyfacesofendo”.