In mid-October, my niece Megan Guzman left Cape Town to bike 100 miles to South Africa’s Eastern Cape in an event named Cycle2Zero. She and riders from all over the world did this to raise money for mothers2mothers, the wonderful NGO working with HIV positive moms. The VIDEO below shows a few moments from the ride, on which Megan raised nearly $6400 of the more than $200,000 raised for m2m. She’s m2m’s Senior Programme Manager for the Cape Town area.
In an email she sent to let her sponsors know she survived, she says, “It was a true group effort with families and individuals from all over the world coming together. While m2m staff and participants rode during the day and made site visits to clinics with m2m programming, kids did service projects and experienced the lovely (if very hot), Eastern Cape Province of South Africa.” She also adds that on the last night of the ride a board member pledged to match any more donations. So go HERE to donate more!
The m2m website says, “mothers2mothers believes in the power of mothers to help end paediatric AIDS. We train, employ, and empower mothers living with HIV to bring health and hope to other mothers, their families, and communities.”
mothers2mothers South Africa was formed in 2001. Since then, m2m has grown to include three affiliated nonprofit organizations based on a common, shared vision and mission. m2m South Africa, based in Cape Town, is the global headquarters. There’s also m2m International in Los Angeles and New York, and m2m United Kingdom in London.
Megan got her masters in public health at Columbia University and has since lived in Uganda, Swaziland, Mozambique, and South Africa, and backstopped programs in Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mali, Nigeria, and Rwanda. When I first wrote her about the ride, I told her I’d been riding 3 miles up hill 3 times a week in the Arizona summer heat—a ride you can see a VIDEO of Here—so I knew she could do Cycle2Zero. But, of course, 3 miles isn’t 100 miles, and I guess the Eastern Cape is no slouch for heat, either. In my biking video I talk about Emmanuel House (now The Neighbor Project), and it’s been great learning about mothers2mothers and Megan’s role there, building relationships, managing programs, and biking miles and miles for all those mothers and kids.