With the Mothers of South Africa who are Defeating HIV
Thanks to the collaboration between Enel Green Power and the NGO Mothers2Mothers, mothers in the province of Limpopo affected by HIV can get treatment and give birth to virus-free babies. A programme that has already involved 12,433 women and embodies the United Nations’ goals for sustainable development. Nelson Mandela said that “education is the most powerful weapon that we can use to change the world”. And in the birth country of Madiba, South Africa, Enel Green Power is seeing the results of this simple truth, thanks to a project involving more than 2000 HIV-positive women. A few kilometres from the border between South Africa and Botswana, where our solar plant Tom Burke is located, we work with the NGO Mothers2Mothers (M2M) on a programme of education and prevention dedicated to young mothers and pregnant women.
“In the province of Limpopo, 30% of pregnant women are HIV positive and 43% of deaths of women and children are due to the development of HIV.” The collaboration with Mother2Mother is a tangible example of the effectiveness of the Creating Shared Value model, a distinctive trait of Enel Green Power in all the local contexts where we work in the world.
The Ability to Share
The value of every Enel Green Power plant is not only measured by its installed capacity of renewable energy. Tom Burke’s 66 MW solar plant documents EGP’s engineering ability and effectiveness, but that’s not all. The programme of mentoring and education run by Mothers2Mothers has involved more than 2000 women. In the province of Limpopo, alongside our technology, we’ve brought our ability to share the needs and hopes of the local population by collaborating to improve their social, economic and health situation. “Today, the communities of Limpopo have before them an opportunity to face an important economic and social challenge”
– Lekoko Modimola, Stakeholder Relations Managers Tom Burke
Thanks to the actions of Mothers2Mothers, we are committed to improving access to healthcare services for the prevention of virus transmission from mother to child (Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission – PMTCT).
The support of M2M does not stop at pregnancy but continues after birth to ensure that infants, mothers and families have the healthiest life possible.
From mother to mother
HIV-positive mothers receive medical support, as well as psychological support according to the sharing model that lends its name to the South African NGO, from mother to mother.
Alongside doctors and nurses, the so-called mentor mothers work, women and HIV-positive mothers, who have already experienced the NGO’s programme, giving birth to children free of the virus.
“One of the essential steps for facing the virus is acceptance”
– Innah, mentor mother M2M
The mentor mothers provide their experiences to the community, offering concrete and feasible examples for women that must face the virus for the first time.
At the start of the path that M2M proposes to mothers is the awareness of the problem that they are experiencing and the acceptance of it. It’s a journey over time that reinforces the role of women in the community and gives them an important message of independence and hope for the future.
Common good: commitment from everyone
Since the launch of our collaboration with Mothers2Mothers, four mentor mothers have visited the Tom Burke site, to give group training sessions and interviews with the employees, to teach them how to protect themselves and their loved ones from the virus.
In the first two months of 2017, the M2M programme has allowed us to reach about 2,690 residents of the Limpopo community. We have also done 420 information sessions and pre-screening for tuberculosis, 158 meetings on gender education and about violence against women and 32 visits to families.
“Our initiatives in South Africa are a concrete step towards the achievement of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.”
At the M2M centres, mothers find prevention and medical assistance, support for taking care of themselves and their unborn children and discover the powerful secret of sharing, where the common good comes from the commitment of everyone.
