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Marie was born in Kenya to a single mother, Josephine Ojiambo. She eventually had two younger siblings, but she bonded most closely with her older brother Peter. They were just one year apart. “We sheltered each other… and went through life teaching each other.” Their experiences were very similar. They went to the same schools. They had the same friends. And they both were born with sickle cell anemia, caused by a mutation in a single gene that turns red blood cells into rigid crescent or sickle shapes, instead of soft discs.
Marie’s mother founded the Peter Ojiambo Foundation, of which Marie and her sisters are board members. Marie had done extensive work in the nonprofit space before this, focusing on advocacy and education for sickle cell disease with the Sickle Strong Initiative. Since beginning her advocacy work, the number of treatment options for sickle cell have significantly increased.
