From the mouth of m2m Mentor Mother Nolelwa

Before accepting employment as a Mentor, Nolelwa was an ordinary woman like all of us. She had gone through difficult times like many of us. In 2001 she tested HIV-positive. At the time she didn’t have any information about HIV. She though it meant she did not have HIV. She went to share the “good news” with her family and friends. Some tried to explain to her that being HIV-positive meant that a person actually has HIV. She chose to ignore them, as she believed her own information was correct.

For two years she carried this incorrect information with her. Watching the local TV program Soul City in 2003, she heard that being HIV-positive really means that a person has HIV. She then decided to go have the test again. The test came back positive. This time she received full counseling and got her facts straight.

She disclosed to her partner and they decided to have a child. In 2006 she gave birth to a baby boy, and three months later, he tested HIV-negative. Since her son’s birth she had a whole new purpose in life, to live not just for herself but her son as well.

At the beginning of 2007, she started work in a restaurant in Killarney. One night in September 2007 she had an argument with her transport driver and he demanded that she get out of the taxi. She was about half a kilometer away from home when six men caught her. They dragged her into nearby bushes and raped her. A car came and turned its lights on them just as it was the fifth man’s turn to rape her. This caused all the men to flee.

The car driver drove her home and left her money to go to the police station the following day.  For a whole week she hid herself in the house. She wanted to hide the shame she felt.

On the second week she got courage to go seek help, her first stop was m2m at Nolungile. A Mentor by the name of Bulelwa and a m2m Site Coordinator escorted her to Simelela, a rape survivor counselling centre.  She was counseled, seen by a doctor and treated for the sexually transmitted disease she was diagnosed with.

As of that day she spent most of her days at m2m support groups at either Site B or Nolungile. In February 2008 she became one of m2m’s unique family members, and is now a Mentor Mother herself.