So much more to share about that first year in Africa and the beginning of my new life. Reinventing myself took time and that was just the beginning. That year saw a White House visit, the launch of my public speaking career (not an easy thing to initiate when you’re pushing fifty!), and an incredibly difficult decision to move back to the US with my family.
It is now five years later…together with Mitch and our third partner, Gene, we have grown mothers2mothers into a multinational nonprofit with more than five hundred sites throughout South Africa, Kenya, Rwanda, Zambia, Lesotho, Swaziland, and Malawi. We employ almost 1,400 HIV-positive mothers, and reached about one million moms last year with our messages of empowerment and education. We have been visited by First Lady Laura Bush, then Senator Obama (during his campaign) and Senator Pelosi, countless members of Congress, Kenneth Cole, Bono, Beyonce, and Elton John. We have been honored at the White House, briefed the Senate, and won the prestigious Skoll Entrepreneurial Award. I was even included in Kenneth Cole’s new book, “Awearness.”
Do I miss the glamour of television? What do you think?
(In future installments, I can’t wait to tell you about some of our moms…how they reinvent themselves all the time, from powerless to powerful, and from hopeless to hopeful. I hope their stories inspire you as much as they do me, each and every day.)
This was my story and I hope you will want to learn more about mothers2mothers. To do so, please check out www.m2m.org.
