Healthcare systems and personnel were initially overwhelmed by the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and little time was available to counsel young pregnant women.

Smalley and her co-founder, Dr. Mitch Besser, an OBGYN, came up with the idea of the Mentor Mothers program. What better resource for the program, she said, than the women themselves?

“Let’s just take newly delivered moms, who are HIV positive, put them through a rigorous training, send them back into their own clinics as what we call Mentor Mothers. Pay them for their work, and let them address this service, and that’s what’s happened. Now when a young woman comes in and gets this devastating diagnosis, a mentor Mother is called, who can put her arms around her, hold her hand, who can say you’re not alone. I’m positive, too. And we’re going to get through this together,” she said.

Smalley said women undergo positive changes after joining the Mentor Mothers program.

“They become different people. Their heads are held high. They’ll be wearing T-shirts that say HIV Positive. They’re speaking out in their churches and in their schools and in their townships. They become role models in their community,” she said.

Mothers2Mothers also plays a big role in the UNAIDS-sponsored campaign to end pediatric AIDS in the near future.

“Now we have this urgency. We’re looking at 2015. My God, we can actually in the next few years make it a world where no baby has to be born facing this devastating life-long illness. It’s so exciting,” said Smalley.