Her historic appearance on the cover of Vogue thrust Thando Hopa into the limelight, and it shined a light on the travails of albinism. As a black woman with albinism, she has been subject to a wide variety of discrimination, and she’s used her platform as a model, activist and lawyer to fight for accurate representation. In this interview, we get a deeper look at the challenges she’s faced, and the incredible advances she has made in fostering acceptance and understanding. At just 31, the multi-hyphenate Hopa is a force to be reckoned with across different spaces. Through her considerable advocacy work as an activist, Hopa has and continues to dispel stereotypes and misconceptions about people living with albinism as well as changing what complex representation looks like within mainstream media. In 2018, Hopa was named the one of the world’s 100 most influential women by the BBC. After hanging up her gown as a legal prosecutor after four years of working with victims of sexual assault, Hopa is on a mission to change skewed perceptions and prejudices when it comes to standards of beauty.
SOURCE: OKAYAFRICA