Johnny Nash, in his worldwide smash hit single “There are more questions than answers”, asked the question “What is life? How do we live? What should we take and how much should we give?” As I approach 18 months in my role as Executive Director at One to One Africa, it feels like a particularly apt time to consider these words.
Our work has grown organically over time. The more we found out about the needs of the communities, the more we realised that more needed to be done. But we did not necessarily know how it had to be done. Echoing those words of Johnny Nash, the more we found out, the less we knew. But in consulting with our team of Mentor Mothers, and guided by assessing and analysing the data we methodically collect on our mHealth app, we realised that we need to tackle the HIV infection rate and its consequences at its source – the pre-conception stage: by engaging and educating men and adolescents as well as prospective mothers, monitoring their pregnancy and antenatal care, ensuring they know their HIV status and when positive initiating Anti-Retroviral Treatment, thereby eliminating transmission of the virus to their babies. We monitor each child's health and facilitate their development and nutrition over their first 5 years to give them the best possible start in life.
2023 promises to be an exciting year during which these exciting developments will be launched through a phased approach.
Reaching 5000 women and children
The core work of our Mentor Mothers was extended to 6 additional villages, bringing the total number of villages to 36 where Mentor Mothers provide door-to-door life-saving health advice and service. This brings our reach to over 5000 women and children.
A bright start for Bright Start
We piloted an expanded version of our existing early childhood development programme Bright Start, launching Enable Play Learning, where 1006 caregivers, in the form of mothers, aunts and grandmothers, receive facilitated guidance to provide their children with structured play. The children born in the deeply rural villages in which we operate are likely to start school being developmentally behind their higher-income peers – this phenomenon is sometimes referred to as the “income achievement gap.”
Born into multidimensional poverty, there are access barriers to play schools, crèches and the like in our catchment areas, so we decided to invert the normal structure by bringing the learning into the homes of the children. We distribute toys, books and all the other materials required for the caregivers to facilitate structured play learning within the home. The programme, designed according to the World Health Organisation’s Nurturing Care Framework for early childhood development, is to ensure that children survive, thrive, and are school-ready when they commence pre-primary school. We leapt from 70 caregivers enrolled on the programme in 2021, to 1006 in 2022.
Don't forget the men
We also introduced male engagement workshops across 22 villages, starting with workshops attended by just the chiefs, to gauge their responsiveness. And what a success they turned out to be! We immediately held a series of follow-on workshops within each of the respective 22 villages, each being attended by the respective chief and local villagers, to introduce the male engagement programme, examine traditional gender norms and introduce the subject of men’s health. During this series, we also identified men to recruit into the Mentor Brother team, who are men who will receive training to facilitate ongoing, monthly sessions and dialogues with men across the 22 villages over the course of this year, 2023.
Opening up youth services
2022 also marked the second year of hosting the youth dialogue, focused on HIV and AIDS. The phenomenal success of this three-day event showed us yet again the vital need to have youth focused engagement programmes and activities throughout the year, because in these areas there are none. There is an acute need for SRH (sexual and reproductive health) services, guidance and advice for young people in our catchment villages. And it is for this reason that in 2023 we are going to be launching our adolescent targeted program.
On the move with our mobile clinic
A mobile clinic aims to reach 20 villages every single month – one village each day. We would be able to reach an additional 1500 women and babies and provide a service to communities that currently have no government clinics, community health workers or any other medical services and personnel attending to them. I'm delighted to announce that we have now secured the funds for the mobile clinic which will become operational in 2023!
More hills to climb
Thank you for indulging me as I have reflected on how far we’ve come. But as the great Nelson Mandela says, we dare not linger too long for there are other hills to climb. I invite you, as we continue to climb more hills, to join us on this incredible journey.