mothers2mothers IS PROUD OF PEPFAR
On this World AIDS Day, GAPP members are sharing why they are so proud of PEPFAR and what they envision for its future. Here, mothers2mothers shares how PEPFAR is helping to create brighter futures for vulnerable children and adolescents.
At just 18 years old, Klaas faced immense challenges. He was raising his 14-year-old brother alone in Mpumalanga, South Africa, after their mother died. He was struggling to afford clothes and food, navigating parenthood unprepared, and facing barriers to access health care and social services.
Enter Esther Mamba, a community health worker employed by African NGO mothers2mothers (m2m) as a Linkage Assistant on the Children and Adolescents Are My Priority (CHAMP) project in Mpumalanga. CHAMP, an m2m project that began in 2019, is funded by PEPFAR, through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Esther—along with her nearly 200 frontline health colleagues at CHAMP—works to improve the health, well-being, and resilience of orphans and other vulnerable children and adolescents (OVCA) exposed to, living with, or made vulnerable by HIV/AIDS. They deliver integrated health services and support at health centers and in communities through m2m’s impactful peer-based, community-led model.
The work of Esther and her colleagues is critical in Mpumalanga, where OVCs face numerous challenges, including poverty, limited access to education, and a heightened risk of HIV infection.
“If you knock on the door of any house in our community of Mpumalanga, there’s a good chance that a child will answer the door. And that child may be looking after their orphaned siblings.”
“If you knock on the door of any house in our community of Mpumalanga, there’s a good chance that a child will answer the door. And that child may be looking after their orphaned siblings,” says Esther.
After knocking on Klaas’s door, Esther soon discovered that the brothers were struggling and got busy helping them turn their lives around. She secured food stamps for them, encouraged Klaas’s brother to pursue his studies, connected Klaas to an IT course, provided health education, and linked the brothers to the critical health services they needed. This included HIV testing, which was negative.
Over the past year alone, CHAMP reached 46,592 individuals, including children, adolescents, and caregivers who are either infected with or affected by HIV. m2m Family Mentors delivered a combination of education, screenings, and multisectoral referrals to enhance HIV and other health outcomes, ensure school enrollment, promote household economic stability, and safeguard family safety. Additionally, 24,971 adolescent girls and young women, aged 10-17, along with their caregivers, were reached with evidence-based parenting interventions and 2,924 youth, aged 10-14, participated in a soccer-based intervention using innovative health education messaging to prevent HIV and gender-based violence.
m2m’s USAID-funded CHAMP project is just one of countless examples of PEPFAR’s leadership and commitment to tackling HIV/AIDS and related challenges for more than two decades, and the profound positive impact PEPFAR has had and continues to have on the lives of people and communities around the globe. CHAMP is also one of many examples of m2m’s long-term partnership with PEPFAR, which began in 2005 and has supported m2m’s growth in scale, scope, and impact across 10 African countries.
With an original focus on delivering health services to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV and keep mothers alive, today m2m’s partnership with PEPFAR includes a broad range of services to help strengthen the health of children, adolescents, families, and build the capacity of under-resourced health systems. PEPFAR’s support has been instrumental in helping m2m create more than 12,000 jobs for women living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa and reaching more than 16 million people with critical health services and education as well as achieving virtual elimination of mother-to-child transmission of HIV among our enrolled clients for ten consecutive years.
m2m is proud to contribute to the remarkable impact PEPFAR has had on tens of millions of lives, including ensuring that seven million orphans and vulnerable children and their caregivers receive critical care and support. For Klaas and his brother, PEPFAR’s program and funding have been transformational. With Esther’s continued guidance and support as an m2m Linkage Assistant, Klaas’s brother is focused on finishing high school and enrolling in university. Klaas is now employed as a Data Filer at m2m and is able to effectively support his family.
“Esther made sure that we were always taken care of and that we felt the love of a mother,” says Klaas.