South Africa

Date Started:

2001

Locations (incl. clinics and nearby communities):

New Clients Enrolled (2021):

399,111

New Clients Reached through eServices (2021):

10,413

Mentor Mothers (2021):

298

Senior Technical Advisor: OVC

Yolande Baker

Our work in South Africa

Since its inception in 2001, m2m South Africa has delivered our core integrated services across seven of the nine provinces—prevention of mother to-child transmission of HIV (PMTCT), reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health (RMNCH) and early childhood development (ECD)—while remaining at the forefront of our programme innovation and development.

In 2012, the Mentor Mother Model was adopted as national policy and embedded into the formal healthcare system. During this time, m2m worked in four provinces to recruit, train, and supervise Mentor Mothers across 500 health facilities, before gradually transitioning the programme to government ownership.

In 2018, m2m South Africa launched the USAID-funded initiative—“Children and Adolescents Are My Priority (CHAMP)”—that utilises m2m’s Peer Mentor Model to ensure that orphans and other vulnerable children and adolescents (OVCA) affected by HIV have access health services, are initiated on treatment, and remain in care, and provides support to caregivers of OVCAs.

Mentor Mothers based at the m2m Innovation Hub in Lwandle, Cape Town, are screening clients for hypertension and diabetes, and educating the entire household on how to better manage and prevent noncommunicable diseases, thanks to support from Johnson & Johnson. The Innovation Hub is where we test, pilot, and refine new programmes for service delivery and health systems strengthening to be adopted and scaled across the organisation.

In another first, Project AMPLIFY is a new initiative currently being implemented in Khayelitsha and Gugulethu, targeted at men who have sex with men (MSM) who are living with HIV. Thanks to funding from Merck Foundation, nine male Peer Mentors have been employed and trained to ensure that MSM clients and their families have access to psychosocial support, particularly those struggling with coming out, disclosure, acceptance, and family dynamics.

ownership.

Our Impact in South Africa

Success Story

Millicent Magwa—Community Mentor Mother Coordinator Cape Town, South Africa

Diagnosed with HIV at the height of the pandemic in South Africa in 2002, Millicent relied on a television programme that aired once a week to access information about how to live a healthy and positive life. At the time, HIV treatment was very expensive; most people could not afford it and many died from AIDS-related illnesses. Now, 21 years later, Millicent is working as a Community Coordinator for mothers2mothers and is dedicating her life to providing the health education and services she wished she had access to when she first tested positive. Based at m2m’s Innovation Hub in Cape Town, Millicent and her team are delivering integrated primary health care services that go well beyond HIV. She is now actively screening clients and their families for noncommunicable diseases such as diabetes and hypertension. With her kit bag, Millicent conducts blood pressure and blood glucose checks and links clients to health services at the nearby Ikhwezi Community Clinic. She monitors progress, encourages her clients to adhere to treatment, and offers lifestyle education and advice to help them better manage their health and well-being.