Physical Health South Africa Project #20682

Be the Generation to End Paediatric AIDS in Africa

by mothers2mothers

Be the Generation to End Paediatric AIDS in Africa

Project Report | Jan 10, 2017
Happy New Year!

By Gwendolyn Burke | Junior Administrative and Development Officer

Last time we provided an update about mothers2mothers (m2m), I introduced you to Phumela, a former client and current Mentor Mother in Swaziland. Today I would love for you to meet Mapemphero, a client and mother of two in Malawi, and learn her story.

"If I had not met mothers2mothers, my life would have been so tough."

As we mark the passing of another year, I am sharing New Year's greetings below from Frank Beadle de Palomo, President and Chief Executive Officer of m2m.

I cannot believe we reached the end of 2016, and what a milestone it was for mothers2mothers (m2m)! 2016 marked 15 years since m2m was founded at one site in Cape Town, South Africa. Since that time, we have reached nearly 1.5 million HIV-positive mothers in sub-Saharan Africa with lifesaving education and support. I am so proud of everything that we accomplished in 2016 and how the organisation is evolving and expanding to reach more women and families, creating an HIV-free generation through a broader range of services.

Impact and scale are very important to us, and here are some of the results that made us the most proud this year:

2.1%: m2m’s mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) rate at the final 18-24 month HIV test, which means, according to UNAIDS guidelines, we virtually eliminated paediatric AIDS among our clients for a second year in a row . Furthermore, our MTCT rates are significantly lower than national rates in all of the countries in which we work.
1 in 4: The proportion of HIV-positive women delivering babies in countries supported by m2m who received education and support from a Mentor Mother.
860,500: The number of women, infants, and family members that m2m reached. We had a 35% increase from the year before, largely due to the expansion of our family-centred, facility-to-community approach that links women, children, adolescents, and male partners to essential medical care.

In addition, we have so much more to share. Other key highlights in 2016 include the expansion of our programme into Zambia and the launch of Early Childhood Development and Adolescent Health and Youth Development initiatives to make sure that children have the opportunity to thrive and reach adolescence with the tools and knowledge necessary to make healthy choices. It is only then that the vicious cycle of pediatric AIDS will truly be broken and an HIV-free generation can become a reality. 2017 is shaping up to be equally exciting, so please stay tuned.

We could not have achieved any of this without the amazing support of our donors. To each and every one of you, I send my heartfelt gratitude. Your commitment has made it possible for m2m to reach hundreds of thousands of mothers and members of their family with critical education and support. Your support fuels our ability to create health, hope, and brighter futures for so many. Thank you!

From the entire m2m family to you and your loved ones, we send warm wishes for a very Happy and Healthy New Year.

Permalink

Oct 12, 2016
Celebrating 15 Years

By Gwendolyn Burke | Junior Administrative and Development Officer

Mentor Mother Phumela

How quickly children grow! It seems like only yesterday that mothers2mothers (m2m) was just a glint in Founder Mitch Besser’s eye. And now m2m is turning 15 years old. We are recognised as a leader in global efforts to end paediatric AIDS and create healthy families and communities, and we still have more growing to do. We're incredibly thankful for the support you have provided to help us grow our impact. As we celebrate our fifteenth birthday, we're also celebrating you!

To mark this milestone, we launched a year-long global initiative, Change Tomorrow Today, highlighting m2m’s role in creating brighter tomorrows for women living with HIV, their children, and families in sub-Saharan Africa.

Phumela is just one of nearly 1.5 million women living with HIV that have been impacted by m2m. A former client, she is now employed by m2m as a Mentor Mother in Swaziland. Watch Phumela talk about her experience with m2m here.

"I like being a Mentor Mother. I inspire other mothers that there is life after HIV. I am not afraid of HIV because I feel like I am stronger than HIV."

So much has changed since m2m's early days. Beginning with five Mentor Mothers at one site in Cape Town in 2001, we now employ more than 1,700 Mentor Mothers in hundreds of clinics and communities in seven sub-Saharan African countries.

Last year alone, we reached 860,500 women, children, adolescents, and men through expanded community engagement that linked women and their family members to health centres for essential care and treatment. But there is still so much work to do, with more than 400 babies infected with HIV each day and a growing HIV/AIDS epidemic among adolescents.

As we celebrate our birthday with a global birthday party, let's look toward a future filled with health and hope for more mothers like Phumela and their families. Thank you for helping us create such a future, together.

Permalink

Jul 21, 2016
Highlights from m2m's Recent Annual Evaluation

By Gwendolyn Burke | Junior Administrative and Development Officer

mothers2mothers (m2m) just released the highlights of our 2015 annual evaluation and we wanted to share them with you to give you a sense of the impact your donations have had. In 2015, m2m virtually eliminated mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) of HIV among its clients for the second year in a row, according to UN Global Plan guidelines. m2m also significantly improved uptake of Early Infant Diagnosis of HIV, a critical area of global underperformance. Mothers with two or more m2m visits are over seven times more likely to test their babies for HIV at six weeks in the six countries where m2m operated in 2015, compared to women with just one visit. m2m clients are also more likely to test for HIV compared to national testing rates. Furthermore, the m2m model has been seen to be effective in addressing other health challenges, including reproductive health and family planning, nutrition, and TB and malaria screening, and has been shown to save significant money in averted HIV treatment costs.

“Ending paediatric AIDS is within our reach,” says Frank Beadle de Palomo, President & Chief Executive Officer of m2m. “Our model at mothers2mothers has been proven to prevent future generations from being born with HIV.”

Recent years have seen a significant expansion of m2m’s reach, with the organisation serving more than one-in-four HIV-positive pregnant women across South Africa, Kenya, Malawi, Swaziland, Lesotho and Uganda. In 2015, m2m reached an estimated 860,500 women, infants, children, adolescent girls and young women, and men.

“I congratulate mothers2mothers for their outstanding results. mothers2mothers is an example of community engagement at its best. The mothers2mothers social and entrepreneurial business model empowers women living with HIV by helping them have HIV-free children while at the same time helping other mothers,” applauds UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibe.

m2m's facility-to-community platform trains, employs, and empowers local mothers living with HIV as frontline healthcare workers in understaffed health centres and communities. These Mentor Mothers provide essential health education and support to other HIV-positive women in one-on-one and group sessions, enabling women to protect their babies from HIV and keep their families healthy. With the help of generous donors like you, we can be the generation to end paediatric AIDS!

Permalink

‹ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ›

About Project Reports

Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.

If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.