US consul general Allison Areias took the hands of a young woman, shaking and in tears, who repeated her dream like a mantra, of giving her baby girl a safe home to grow up in.
Areias visited Buffalo City Metro after speaking at the World Aids Day commemoration at the Sisa Dukashe Stadium in Mdantsane on Sunday.
On her first trip to the Eastern Cape, Areias — who assumed her duties at the Cape Town consulate in July — sat among representatives from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), government departments and NGOs to hear testimonies of about 20 young women enrolled in the Dreams initiative through Masimanyane Women’s Rights International.
Seated in a semicircle in the Mzamomhle community hall on Monday, Areias asked questions about their lived experiences, of abuse, addiction, sexual assault and living with HIV/Aids.
The US President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar) has partnered with the South African government to support HIV prevention, care and treatment programmes and has invested more than R145bn ($8bn) since 2003.
Dreams, an acronym for “determined, resilient, empowered, Aids-free, mentored and safe”, is a Pepfar flagship public-private partnership aimed at reducing HIV rates among adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) in high-burden countries.
The next phase, Dreams NextGen was launched in 2024 as a nuanced and country-specific approach, incorporating activities and interventions that nurture a supportive environment for participants.
These efforts are implemented in collaboration with regional and national partners.
Some of these include economic independence, learning about financial stability, building your own business or work experience.
One woman stood and spoke about her small business, which she started because of the programme.
She held out a tub of homemade hair product for Areias to sample, who took a whiff of the yellow ointment as the crowd clicked in encouragement.
Masimanyane executive director Lesley-Ann Foster said: “I was moved by the authenticity and courage of the young women who spoke of the abuse, deprivation and marginalisation they suffered as children and young adults and how they turned those negative circumstances around.
“I was moved by their creativity, innovation and entrepreneurial flare.
“The Dreams programme has several components to it.
“Firstly, we recruit young women from all communities to join the programme. We then run a programme on prevention called ‘No means no’.
“Young women are taught skills to prevent or ward off violent attacks.
“To empower the young women further, we provide skills training in sexual and reproductive health and rights and financial literacy.
“This gives them a rounded intervention which we found builds their agency and personal power.
“I am very proud of Yvonne Horner, who goes way beyond her job role to link these young women to job opportunities.”
Almost every girl thanked Masimanyane’s Horner, who goes door-to-door with permission letters asking for jobs for hundreds of girls.
Nosiphiwo Matomane, 24, from Pefferville, who joined the project in 2023, said: “I met Yvonne and she made me the person who I am today.
“I’m living in an underprivileged community where most youth don’t know where to go in life, some are using drugs, some have bad times in their homes.
“This programme made me believe that I can be someone, that I can make changes in my community.
“I’m the only one who’s working and I even had a chance to see that I can make things. I can save for myself. I know how to make a budget. I can say that I am an independent woman.”
Facilitator Horner, 38, from Pefferville, said: “I am a survivor of gender-based violence as well. The reason I have so many beneficiaries attending my seasons is that they can relate to me and the stories told.
“I’m here, and able to tell young girls that I’m standing as a survivor of rape, an ex-drug abuser, and I’m trying to change the lives of the youth.
“The dreams programme is a dream come true.”
In an interview, Areias said she had outlined her three-year tenure, prioritising travel in her first year, and absorbing as much culture, education and information as she could, in the hope of connecting local enterprise with US investment.
“What I always try to do is travel in my first year. You do every possible event and meet as many people as you can. You have to see it.
“You just can’t rely on your staff. You have to for authenticity, for your own.
“The second year you think about new things we can do.
“My predecessors were all outstanding officers but circumstances change in a country — there are new opportunities, new programmes.
“What more can we do? How can we build on their great work?
“And then the third year you bring it home.”
With a foreign service career posting her across the globe, her most recent assignment was at the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs in Vienna.
In this role she piloted a new “Strategic Partnerships and Initiatives” portfolio, helping emerging spacefaring nations access the benefits of space.
She is the first US diplomat seconded to a UN Secretariat office.
In the US, she worked on economic security and intellectual property rights protection, and served as an advance officer for former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice.
Before joining the US foreign service, Areias was a federal marine wildlife attorney for the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the US department of justice. She is also a former Peace Corps volunteer.
Areias spoke at the World Aids Day in Mdantsane on Sunday, and later praised the announcement by Deputy President Paul Mashatile of the initiative to identify 1.1-million people living with HIV but not yet on treatment and linking them to treatment between now and December 2025.
“We are really happy they announced the 1.1-million which is important for our work. Our main engagement in the Eastern Cape is health.
“Through our Pepfar programme, that is our major investment here.”
For this US financial year (October 2024-September 2025), SA’s Pepfar country co-ordinator, Saira Johnson-Qureshi, says the country received $439.5m (R7.9bn).
Some of this money goes directly towards the health department and the rest to non-government organisations working on HIV issues, TimesLIVE has reported.
When asked about continuation of the project after the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, the US Consul shared a statement by US Global AIDS Coordinator and Special Representative for Health Diplomacy Dr John Nkengasong.
“Sustaining an effective HIV response requires continued bipartisan support at home and increasing programmatic ownership from Pepfar-supported countries,” Nkengasong said.
“Pepfar and its partners are proud to continue to earn the bipartisan support the programme has received since its inception.
“A clean, five-year reauthorisation of Pepfar will enable the programme to cement a great, American-led triumph over one of the most challenging viruses humanity has ever encountered and enable a smooth transition to country-led programmes with government accountability and community leadership at their core.”
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