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n South Africa, HIV is often thought of as a death sentence. Nineteen year-old Nozandulela “Nozi” has seen it herself. Years ago, she watched her cousin die of AIDS, saw the viciousness with which it attacked the body and the pain and alienation that consumed her.
When Nozi tested positive three years later, she thought of her cousin. “At that moment, I felt cold. It was like someone put a stop to my life,” she recalls. She was six months pregnant with her first baby at the time.
In clinics and hospitals across South Africa, one quarter of pregnant women test positive for HIV. Often they are given a short consultation by the medical staff and sent on their way with instructions to come back at the end of the pregnancy for a single dose of anti-retroviral drugs. Overwhelmed and overworked, the doctors and nurses do not have the resources or capacity to provide further information that can offer hope and encouragement to women, keep them healthy and prevent transmission of the virus to their babies. Many of these women leave clinics confused and scared. Perhaps they have heard rumors that you can pass HIV on to your child. Most have no hope for the future, and many do not return to the hospital or clinic for care.
Fortunately for Nozi, she had somewhere to turn. The day Nozi was diagnosed, her counselor told her about mothers2mothers (m2m), an organization with funding from the New Partners Initiative (NPI) that provides emotional and social support for HIV-infected pregnant and postpartum women. Staffed by HIV-positive women who were once in the same situation, m2m uses education and empowerment to prevent mother-to-child transmission, combat stigma, support adherence to medical treatment and reduce the likelihood of young people becoming AIDS orphans. From these women, Nozi learned that there were medications she could take and behaviors she could adopt to prevent her child from being infected and to also improve her health. She joined the m2m support group and listened to other women tell their stories. She realized that she did not have to live in fear or hide her HIV status. In fact, she had the ability to make positive decisions to improve her life and protect her baby.
After giving birth to a healthy, HIV-negative baby, Nozi told her own story to new women in the support group and began counseling others. Soon she became a Mentor Mother, a paid m2m employee who provides guidance and support to newly tested HIV-positive women and new mothers. She was later promoted to Site Coordinator, and she now manages a team of Mentor Mothers and oversees the day-to-day operations of her site.
Thanks to m2m and NPI, there are a growing number of Nozis in South Africa and beyond. In the past two years m2m has expanded its services and is now operational in seven countries. In Kenya, Rwanda and Zambia, m2m’s NPI-funded projects, the program has entered into partnerships with local organizations and has adapted its approach to meet the unique needs of these countries. Today, m2m reaches more than 150,000 women a month. These women all carry heavy burdens, and yet they have found strength in other women and within themselves. Transcending their disease, they are living to raise healthy children and inspiring a growing number of women to find hope at mothers2mothers.
