January, 2011

So my day job brought me to South Africa this week and I was able to take advantage of a late call time today to visit the main offices of Mothers2Mothers. M2M was founded right here in Cape Town in 2001 (I happened to meet one of their co-founders, Robin Smalley in New York last fall). M2M has an amazing Mentor Mothers program where they have successfully been integrating HIV positive mothers into their organization as a means to empowering women while utilizing the moms who have joined and benefitted from their services (which include testing, psycho-social counseling and the management of Antiretroviral treatment (ARV) themselves). These moms have a unique set of needs that traditional physicians and clinicians are generally unable and not trained to provide. They also have a unique set of strengths that allow them to break down barriers to care - most importantly the fact that they have personal experience and often come from the communities they are serving.