Be the Generation to End Paediatric AIDS in Africa

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.