Why? Because enduring and profound health inequities mean that diseases we know how to prevent or treat are still having a devastating impact on women, children, and entire communities across sub-Saharan Africa.
• 615M people across the African continent do not have access to the healthcare they need.
• Two out of three mothers who die during pregnancy live in sub-Saharan Africa.
• 37% of deaths in sub-Saharan Africa are attributable to Non-Communicable Diseases, like Diabetes and Hypertension.
• Women living with HIV are six times more likely to develop Cervical Cancer.
• Adolescent girls and young women aged 15-24 are three times as likely to acquire HIV as adolescent boys and young men of the same age group, and still make up 82% of new infections in the sub-Saharan region
Addressing Africa’s healthcare gap is critical to achieving the Global Goal of health for all, and eliminating HIV/AIDS by 2030. We can—and must—act now to prevent the preventable, and deliver health and opportunity for all. What We Do and Why
For more than 20 years, m2m has demonstrated that mothers living with HIV working as paid, professionalised Community Health Workers can prevent and treat HIV and help women and children thrive—with transformative results for their communities and themselves.
• Since we began, we have helped keep 1.17M at-risk women and almost 1M at-risk children alive.
• We have achieved virtual elimination of mother-to-child transmission of HIV among our enrolled clients for eight consecutive years.
• All while creating jobs for nearly 12,000 women. mothers2mothers (m2m) is now evolving to become an integrated Primary Health Care organisation, using our proven peer-led model to double down on ending HIV, as well as to tackle new health challenges and reach more people over the next five years. We are doing this without losing what makes our impact so meaningful and long-lasting: the employment of African women living with HIV as Community Health Workers. By delivering healthcare to families that need it most, by those who know them best, we will create a foundation for opportunity in African communities that ultimately leads to a healthier, fairer world. By 2026, we will:
• Deliver an end to vertical transmission of HIV for enrolled clients, fulfilling m2m’s original mission.
• Reduce by 1/3 the number of preventable deaths among m2m clients.
• Achieve the UNAIDS triple elimination target for HIV, Syphilis, and Hepatitis B for enrolled clients. mothers2mothers is levelling up and responding to this challenge by bolstering African healthcare systems, while delivering empowerment opportunities for women. We train and employ HIV-positive women as Community Health Workers. These “Mentor Mothers” work in local communities and at understaffed health facilities to ensure that women and their families get the health advice and treatment they need, are linked to and provided with the right clinical services, and are supported on their health journey. Mentor Mothers’ intimate understanding of the social and cultural challenges of living with HIV gives them a unique ability to form trusted relationships with their clients, vital to helping them overcome their fears and make lifesaving decisions.
