Africaid’s Zvandiri: Peer Support Interventions for Young Mothers Living with HIV

Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for two-thirds of people living with HIV globally. Youth in the region, particularly young women and girls, are disproportionately vulnerable to the virus because of associated stigmas and limitations in testing and treatment access. Zvandiri, a nonprofit program run by Africaid, was created in 2004 as a response to this issue. The initiative connects youth living with HIV to trained counsellors also living with HIV. Through peer-support initiatives, these Community Adolescent Treatment Supporters (CATS) improve access to HIV testing and treatment while also providing mental health support to other youth living with HIV in their communities. Their holistic and peer-based approach is the linchpin to Zvandiri’s success. The organization has expanded to nine African countries with 1,600 CATS supporting 56,000 youths. They aim to expand their model to 20 countries by 2030 and reach 1 million youth living with HIV.

This report examines the operations of Zvandiri’s Young Mentor Mother (YMM) program. All its mentors and clients are young mothers living with HIV. The report also explores how these more specific shared experiences affect the YMM model’s efficacy, as well as the challenges and successes that it has faced in bolstering young mothers’ access to HIV testing and treatment. Since the YMM program has been implemented in only parts of Zimbabwe thus far, the report focuses on the potential for scaling the program to other regions and countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.