Thando Hopa is an activist, model, lawyer, writer and actress. At just 32 years of age, her illustrious and storied career has taken her from criminal courts to catwalks to the chambers of global advocacy. She has smashed glass ceilings and broken barriers, accruing a slew of accolades along the way: she is the first model with albinism to grace the cover of Vogue and the first South African of colour to be featured on the Pirelli calendar. In 2018, Thando was hailed by the BBC in their list of 100 inspiring women from around the world; in 2020, she worked with the United Nations and a network of other human rights defenders to participate in the establishment of the first Global Albinism Alliance.
Thando is a mould-breaker: one of the world’s first and most famous models with albinism, known not only by her face but increasingly by her words, her voice and her mind. We were honoured to recently interview Thando and to get to know the woman at the centre of this extraordinary story. Behind the accolades, we found a thinker of fierce intelligence and unshakable authenticity, speaking her truth in the service of human rights.
Scroll down to read the fascinating story of Thando Hopa.
I was born in Johannesburg in 1989. I had a beautiful childhood.
My grandfather on my father’s side named me Amangwevu aNikiwe umtana Wothando, meaning ‘child of love’. Although he passed away when I was young, I remember how fiercely he loved me. My grandmother on my mother’s side raised me. They came from different tribes, which are merged inside of me.
My parents were, and are, my role models. My father is an engineer and my mother is a filmmaker but I always admired their qualities more than their status. I thought my father was the smartest person in the world and my mother was the most imaginative person in the world. I still feel that way. My parents turned our home into a sanctum: they created an environment where my albinism was normalised and I never felt different. My mother wanted me to find my own way through life without seeing albinism as everything that I am.
I don’t remember being aware of my albinism as a source of difference until I first went to school at the age of six. I overheard a child whispering to her friend “don’t sit next to her”, but I didn’t realise she was talking about me. I remember wondering who it was that I should also avoid sitting next to! When I realised they were talking about me, I assumed it must have been because I was wearing the incorrect uniform. I went home and demanded that my mother buy me the right school uniform immediately. Of course, that didn’t remedy the situation, and I slowly began to realise that it was my albinism, and not my clothes, that was attracting attention.
School made me have albinism. I didn’t have it before that. That’s the best way I can explain it.
I remember trying my best to fit in at school, but it wasn’t easy. It’s not just about the stigma of albinism: it’s about bumping into things; it’s staring at the board but not realising you can’t see what everyone else can. I didn’t feel particularly included or understood.
Teachers didn’t think I would survive in a mainstream school. But my mother always thought I was far more capable than others would have her believe. She is probably the one figure in my life who, had I said I wanted to go to the moon, would have told me I definitely could! She said I would be fine in mainstream schools, and although it wasn’t always straightforward, she was right. She showed me how quick people can be to diagnose you and to limit your horizons.
When I left school, I became a lawyer. It wasn’t something I particularly wanted to do: my father wanted me to become an accountant and I wanted to be an actress, so law was a compromise! I became increasingly involved in ‘street law’: a form of public engagement where you go into communities and teach law to grassroots populations. I fell in love with this activist component of law and then became a prosecutor.
While I was a prosecutor, I got scouted as a model by Gert-Johan Coetzee. I was so busy with my prosecutorial work and had no particular interest in modelling, but eventually agreed to do it after realising I could use it as a platform to normalise albinism and provide some positive representation.
From the very start of my modelling career, the media was insane. Not just in South Africa but around the world. The attention was a lot for me to handle as an introvert. People would say “this is your dream” and that was never quite true. I didn’t enjoy shoots and I could barely walk in heels when I started! What kept me in the modelling world was purpose: a sense that I was contributing to greater visibility and positive exposure for people with albinism everywhere.
The thing about being underrepresented is you end up being the first in a lot of things. You become the first because of the barriers and exclusions that existed before. Vogue magazine was over a century old when I became the first model with albinism to be featured on its cover in 2019. As much as that was an achievement, it was also a reminder of the historic absence and anonymity people with albinism have experienced on such platforms.
When I started modelling, the narratives that were open to a body like mine were limited. People only saw my albinism. I had to work so hard to be seen also as a woman, or as a person of colour. There are several identities within me that all deserve recognition and I am proud of the work I’ve done to represent those. As I’ve grown older and more politically mature, I find it easier to spot which shoots are authentic and which have the potential to be problematic. I can spot the cues and patterns that reinforce stereotypes about albinism. I’ve had plenty of shoot requests, sometimes from very influential institutions, but I reject the majority of offers. Choosing the wrong shoots can do long-lasting harm.
Journalists have often quizzed me about African attitudes to albinism as though I myself am somehow not African. The question “What do Africans do to you?” fails to account for the fact that I am fully African and I fully have albinism, it’s not an either-or. In many of those conversations I feel that my albinism becomes cannon fodder: a conduit to perpetuate stereotypes about Africa as a 'dark' continent. But I am African. As much as I want to hold my community accountable for the injustices I and others have experienced, I’m not separate from them. They are me. They are my identity, my heritage, my community.
Activism has become an increasingly important part of my life. It’s the vein that runs through everything I do; it’s in every decision I make. I don’t do it because it’s nice; I do it because it’s necessary. Since the pandemic, a lot of my modelling work has had to stop but somehow the work that requires my mind has picked up a lot. I’ve been asked to write for a prominent beauty magazine, and to act as a board member for a panel of experts in the beauty division of a global research company. In that sense, I’ve become a model who people hire not just for visual representation, but also because of what I think and what I have to say.
My hopes for people with albinism in the future? Ease. I just would like more ease. I’d like a lightness of being. I feel like our bodies are heavy: they’re loaded with history, race, albinism, gender, everything. I would like us to live in lighter bodies.
© 2026 Standing Voice
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