Margaret Odera

Margaret Odera is a community health worker and mentor mother in her community of Mathare, Kenya. Margaret has lived with HIV for 21 years. She and her husband have been married for 10 years and they have three sons who are HIV-negative. Margaret uses her own experience to mentor HIV-positive pregnant and lactating mothers. She helps them adhere to their medicines and helps eliminate mother-to-child transmission of HIV. As a community health worker for the Mathare North Health Center, Margaret provides important information about cholera, tuberculosis, polio, cervical cancer, noncommunicable diseases, COVID-19, and other diseases to people in her community. She also identifies children who have missed important immunizations and malnourished infants in households and refers them to the hospital. At the end of 2020, 1,280 babies tested negative for HIV at 18 months old, which fulfills Margaret as a mother herself.