African Peer Mentoring Programs Supporting Mothers Living With HIV Need More Funding To Continue Work

New York Times: Mothers Helping Mothers to Live With HIV
Tina Rosenberg, author and former editorial writer for the New York Times

“…[Mothers2mothers (m2m)] trains and pays mentor mothers in six African countries to work with pregnant women and new mothers, largely in clinics and hospitals. … M2m, which now gets half its money from United States government anti-AIDS programs, is not the only organization that uses HIV-positive mothers as peer mentors, but it is by far the largest, and probably the only one that pays them salaries. M2m and its local partners have helped several governments — in Rwanda, Ethiopia, Kenya, and South Africa — to establish similar mentor mother corps, and they still work closely with the Kenyan national and South African provincial programs. … But given [mother mentor programs’] value, they are nowhere near as widespread as they should be. The problem is that to be effective, the mothers must be paid — and regardless of how much the program saves later, money is a problem now…” (7/16).

The KFF Daily Global Health Policy Report summarized news and information on global health policy from hundreds of sources, from May 2009 through December 2020. All summaries are archived and available via search.

KFF Headquarters: 185 Berry St., Suite 2000, San Francisco, CA 94107 | Phone 650-854-9400
Washington Offices and Barbara Jordan Conference Center: 1330 G Street, NW, Washington, DC 20005 | Phone 202-347-5270

www.kff.org | Email Alerts: kff.org/email | facebook.com/KFF | twitter.com/kff

The independent source for health policy research, polling, and news, KFF is a nonprofit organization based in San Francisco, California.