50 Years of Impact: AFS Alumnus Creates Positive Change through mothers2mothers NGO

Dr. Mitch Besser’s experience in South Africa began on his AFS program in the early 1970s, in the middle of the era of apartheid. 50 years later, his strong connection to the country remains. 

Mitch’s AFS program enabled him to break free from the limitations of his small-town upbringing and explore new possibilities, ultimately leading him to establish mothers2mothers, an organization that empowers women living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa. After 22 years, mothers2mothers has created nearly 12,000 jobs for women living with HIV and reached more than 15 million people with critical health services.

Check out this episode to learn more about the life changing work that AFSers are doing all over the world, all with the goal to #PassPeaceForward. 

Guest:
Dr. Mitch Besser

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Transcript

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Kate M.
Hello and welcome to The AFS Exchange. I’m Kate Mulvihill. The AFS Exchange is a podcast by AFS-USA where we open the door to hear from members of our AFS family. This is a place to have conversations, or exchanges, with AFS host families, students, volunteers, and educators.

Kate M.
I am very excited to share an interview with you from Dr. Mitch Besser. Mitch was an AFS student to South Africa in 1971.
There are a number of different paths that AFSers can take after their program. Some students have the opportunity to go back to their host country as an adult. That’s what Mitch did.
After returning from his program in South Africa in the early 1970s and going to college, receiving his MD from Harvard and working in San Diego… Mitch returned to South Africa. As someone who values activism and making a difference in the world, he returned with the goal of helping reduce fatalities from HIV due to parental transmission. This is the objective of the organization he founded, called mothers2mothers.

In this interview, we talk about his experience in South Africa as an AFSer, as well as mothers2mothers and all of the transformative work it is doing.
I really enjoyed this conversation with Mitch, he is clearly very passionate about what he does. He is a great example of the global citizenship AFS hopes to create with their intercultural exchange programs.

[Music]

Kate M.
I am talking to…

Mitch B. 
My name is Mitch Besser. I'm a medical doctor. At present, I'm living in Los Angeles, California, but I've spent parts of my life living in Princeton, New Jersey, where I was an AFS student in 1971 to South Africa, which was my AFS home. In between I have lived all over the world.

Kate M.
And why did Mitch choose to study abroad?

Mitch B.
And there was a point, I think, in my high school life where I felt like I wanted to do something more, something outside those boundaries, and AFS was offered to us as, as high school students isn't an opportunity for either a summer experience or a full year experience.
And so, without knowing much more than this was something that would take me off the normal path of a high school student in a small town. I just kind of dove in. So it was just one of those opportunities that floats by, you know, maybe it sets the course for the rest of life, when you decide you're going to be the kind of person who picks up those opportunities, as opposed to passes them all.

Kate M.
In selecting a time to go abroad, Mitch had 3 options. June to June, January to January, or a summer program. Remember, at the time, AFS participants usually didn’t get to select which country they would go to.

Mitch B.
So I opted for the January to January, and that put me in the Southern Hemisphere. And the Southern Hemisphere, at that point included Latin America, Africa, and Australia, New Zealand. And I was fortunate enough to be selected to go to South Africa.

Kate M.
So South Africa… is at the southernmost point of Africa. For perspective, it is the size of California, Nevada, Arizona, and Utah all put  together. It is a country rich in biodiversity. While the country only makes up about one percent of the Earth’s land surface, it’s home to almost ten percent of the world’s known bird, fish and plant species, and about six percent of its mammal and reptile species.
There are many indigenous groups with long histories in the area that is now South Africa. Xhosa, Zulu, Bapedi, and Batswana, just to name a few. South Africa also has a long history of colonization, first by the Dutch in the 1600s then the English in the 1800s.

Kate M. 
And what did you know about South Africa before your AFS program?

Mitch B.
Apartheid? Okay. And in one word, it was about apartheid. And the question was, you know, does one go there, and in some respects, endorse the existing government and the existing social structures? Or does one, you know, and remember, this was just coming out of the 60s, does one make a protest, and say, “I refuse to go to South Africa because of what it represents.”

Kate M.
Okay, for a history lesson. What was South Africa like when Mitch went there in 1971? Apartheid was a system of racial segregation and discrimination from 1948-1994. So… yes, it ended less than 30 years ago.

Apartheid was enforced by the National Party government. It divided the population into racial groups, with the white minority holding political and economic power. The groups included: Blacks, Whites, Indians, and Coloureds. Blacks were predominantly black people from Africa. Whites were generally Europeans. Indians are people from formerly British controlled India who came to South Africa as indentured laborers or free migrants. Coloured refers to anyone of more than one race. All non-white individuals faced severe oppression and were subjected to discriminatory laws and policies.

The Group Areas Act of 1950 forcibly relocated non-white individuals from certain areas designated for whites, creating racially segregated communities. Additionally, there were Pass Laws restricting the movement of non-white individuals, requiring them to carry identification documents and limiting their access to urban areas.

Under apartheid, separate amenities were established for different racial groups, perpetuating racial inequalities in schools, hospitals, and public facilities. The Bantu Education system provided inferior education to Black Africans, limiting their opportunities for advancement. Political representation was denied to non-white individuals, who were excluded from participating in the national government. In response to these injustices, the African National Congress (ANC) and other anti-apartheid organizations led protests, demonstrations, and acts of civil disobedience to challenge the oppressive regime.

Starting in the early 1960s, the United Nations and then much of the global community issued sanctions on South Africa. These included economic sanctions, with a recommendation to limit the trade of goods and arms to the country. Also included were social sanctions, with South Africa being banned from participating in the Olympic Games and other international competitions. Many music artists- and also the pope- did not tour the country during this time.
There was a real pressure to exclude South Africa from the global community. This was all something that Mitch had to really consider before deciding to go on his AFS program in 1971.

Mitch B.
And there were forces within my family, my paternal grandmother was a civil rights activist and suffragette and felt very strongly that going there would condone the government. And she wrote me a very strong letter, saying that she thought I should turn down the opportunity. And I opted to go and experience that part of the world and that social structure to be better informed about it.

You know, it’s an interesting question, in the realms of activism. When does one one's action endorse an existing regime? And when does one make a statement and not act? And so it was, it was an interesting moment in the life of a 16 year old.

Kate M.
Mitch’s grandmother was an important figure for him, and helped inspire his path of social activism.

Mitch B. 
She was marching in the 20s. And she was marching again for Civil Rights in the 60s. So that was her life. And it was, again, part of the moral and social background with which I was raised. How does one make a difference in the world? And how does one stand up for the things that one believes in? And she was very much a model for what I've done with my life. Though, you know, again, I may have gone against her wishes. In the end, I think that the quantity of good that came from my goings, if you kind of extrapolate from there, I think in the end it worked out well.

Kate M. 
Yes, it really does seem like that. So let's see, how did your perspectives about South Africa change and evolve throughout your program?

Mitch B.
Well, you know, when one reads about something, I mean, you have, if you will, a one dimensional experience of it, when one lives in it, you have a three dimensional experience and so that, you know, living in a in the apartheid world and, and in 1971, it was, it was very, very active there.
You were very aware of the boundaries between white and black and the rules, and the inequities, and the resistance that was emerging. And you were completely immersed in this experience. So it was riveting, it was painful, generated insights and reflections that I've carried through the rest of my life.
And it was also in part of an introduction to, “How does one respond to these regimes that one doesn't agree with?” What is a meaningful response, you know, in light of this. So it was for me, the best education I could have gotten outside the walls of the school.

Kate M.
So, after years of struggle, apartheid finally came to an end in 1994 through negotiations. Nelson Mandela, an anti-apartheid revolutionary who had been imprisoned for 27 years, was released and he became the first black president of South Africa. The end of apartheid marked a significant milestone in the country's history, symbolizing the triumph of justice, equality, and the aspirations for a more inclusive and peaceful society.

Today, South Africa has the nickname the “Rainbow Nation.” Why? To highlight multiculturalism and the coming together of people of many different ethnic groups.

Honestly, the history of South Africa- pre, during, and post-Apartheid is super interesting and very extensive. I absolutely cannot do it justice here, so I really recommend you go online to learn more.

So, back to Mitch. I asked him what skills he gained during his AFS experience.

Mitch B.
Well, I'm an introvert. One learns to become more extroverted in these situations. You have a unique opportunity to really, if you will, recreate yourself at 16. You know, having grown up in a small town that I had, I was known for being a good student, and being a nice, young man. It's hard to break out of those kinds of boundaries, when you go to a new place you can become who you want, or who you wished you might have been. And it was an interesting moment of kind of discovery of redefining oneself. And I took advantage of that opportunity to become more socially engaged, more socially active, to try new things, become more adventuresome, and was able to carry that back into the rest of my life when I returned.
Again, it's hard, I think, to find those opportunities in life where you can kind of wipe the slate clean and start over again. And especially early in life as a teenager. It's, it's like that great. It's like golf, a mulligan, you know, you get to, to shoot the ball again and see where it lands. And it was wonderful to be able to do that.

So I, you know, I was relatively shy when I left, but I came back and tried out for theater productions. I was a terrible athlete. And I had joined the rugby team, when I went to South Africa. And when I went to college, I played rugby, it's just I allowed myself to do things that I wouldn't have allowed myself to do, perhaps, if I had never left.

Kate M. 
I like that. Sometimes when you go to a new place and are with people who don't know you at all, you're able to kind of erase some of those stories that you've been told about yourself, by your parents, your teachers, your siblings, your friends, and see who you want to be. And that's something that you discovered. Yeah, that's great.

Mitch B.
That's right. And so again, at the age of 16, and 17, which is kind of a rich time in terms of personal development and transformation. It was the perfect moment to do that.
What emerges is, you know, you don't ever really want to be held accountable for the person you were at 17, 18, 19. But you know, you know, you know, college, college reunions, God help us. You know, that was me then and who I am now, but it was all part of a developing part of an evolution. I mean, I think that part of what I realized in college was a reflection of what I realized in high school: that I was in a very small town, Williamstown, Massachusetts, at Williams College. The experiences were becoming a bit repetitive, I wanted to break out.

And so very much like I did in high school, I left Williams and went back to Africa, in 1974, to work in a Mission Hospital in Zululand, you know, at that time, just kind of a mirror image or the shadow image of what I had done in Cape Town, which was essentially an experience in a white community. This was now an experience in a black African Zulu community. And it almost completed my experience of being in South Africa to have gone back for six months. At that point, a few years, many years later.

Kate M.   
Also, when you're on an AFS program, you're obviously engaging with the community, but in a way, you're kind of in a bubble, especially when you're young, as well. So the fact that you were able to go back and kind of go back on your own terms, motivated to discover a deeper part of this country that you had already seen part of, and kind of flesh out that whole experience.

Mitch B.
So that again, you know, if I experienced a segment of it the first time, I experienced another segment of it the second time.
So in the 1990s, I was in San Diego developing programs for mothers living with HIV in San Diego, who were pregnant. And the development of the science and the practice of medicine, in relation to that, evolved in the 90s.

Kate M.
Mitch had an interest in taking what he had learned and applying it in a place where the need was great.

Mitch B.
And that was South Africa.
At that point, I was married, we had two young kids. And we thought that there'd be, again, huge benefits in having those kids learn about and live in another world. We can expand their horizons by taking them to go to school in Africa. And so I joined as a volunteer the University of Cape Town's Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology with an interest in developing HIV programs for them. And in the course of work with UCT, University of Cape Town, and developing those programs, I was a clinician seeing women every day who were HIV positive, pregnant, and trying to get the best possible care for themselves in their and their babies.

Mitch B.
So mothers2mothers is an organization designed to meet the needs of women who are pregnant, who are living with HIV. mothers2mothers evolved from my experience as a clinician where I recognize that as a male, as an American, as someone who was not fortunately living with HIV, I could fully or even maybe even partially understand the experience of a mother, who was HIV positive, and coming from a culture and a community that I was foreign to me.
And so what we did was we embraced the patients who I had seen, who had had babies and, and brought them back into the clinic to provide mentorship for women who were still pregnant and mothers2mothers was that notion of a mother who had had a baby who was living with HIV who had had a positive successful experience could change, change the world have a mother who was pregnant and fearful about her well being and her baby's well being and, and just that, you know how to live with the stigma. And at that point, there's an enormous stigma of being HIV positive in, in South Africa.

Kate M.
And the program started at the University of Cape Town. It has now been going on for…

Mitch B.
This year, it'll be 22 years in 10 countries across Africa. And I think we've seen close to 15 million people. And we've employed 12,000 mothers with HIV.
It's a source of employment, it's a source of empowerment, it's an approach to stigma reduction. But you know, people who have jobs have an opportunity to make decisions about their lives, that gives them a certain power. And while we can't empower anybody we can employ people in and they can take that opportunity and, and grow and evolve with it.

Kate M. 
The core services are education and support for women who are pregnant and living with HIV. The goal is to help these women have babies born healthy and without HIV. 

Mitch B.
And so there's an enormous amount of, of energy in terms of just emotional and, and social support, reproductive health, family planning, they want to have primary prevention. How do we get young girls, adolescent girls and young women to take control of their lives or maintain control of their lives, so that they don't make poor choices, so that they don't acquire HIV inadvertently? So they'd have babies when they want to. So they stay in school to get the education they need that will allow them to become more powerful leaders in their lives.

We're also spinning off and doing more work around how do you help mothers raise their children most successfully? How do we work with the mothers for early child development? We're also starting to do work around tuberculosis, diabetes management, but the non communicable diseases were the same model of peer-to-peer support can generate better outcomes than people who aren't getting that kind of peer-to-peer support. So I think if you drill down, if you distill down, the essence of what we believe is that peer-to-peer support is a very powerful mediator, for the best outcomes and in wellbeing and health.

Kate M.
What is something that you wish people knew about the reality of HIV/AIDS in Africa? What are some common misconceptions that we have over here in the States?

Mitch B.
So here's a common misconception about HIV, that mothers who are pregnant and having babies are going to have HIV positive, HIV infected babies. Truly 99% of mothers living with HIV, give birth to HIV negative babies. mothers2mothers year on year for the last seven years is at a mother to child transmission of HIV of under 1%.
And so that this is possible in Africa, but also in the world in which we live in the United States and Europe. The transmission rates are minuscule, and if people get care, they essentially dial down to zero. So I think there is a misconception that people who are living with HIV and pregnant will transmit it to their babies. And that's false.
I think what we're also coming to understand is that people living with HIV can live normal, long, productive lives. With the medicine and healthcare currently available, people have normal lifespans with HIV. And I think that there's a misunderstanding that HIV is a death sentence, it's not any longer.

Kate M.
If you would like to learn more about mothers2mothers and all the amazing work that they are doing, head over to m2m.org (that’s M, the number 2, M). So, taking a step back to study abroad…

Kate M.
What advice would you have for students who are considering a study abroad program?

Mitch B.
I think for students, in those years of high school where it's such an enriching time, you can try things without apology. You can experiment, you can experience. Don't let those years slip away. Take advantage of the opportunities that present themselves. Later in life, those opportunities don't come back again. But in many respects, high school is the last, if you will, free ride. You get to experience things, to explore possibilities and opportunities. And so take advantage of it. Don't wait. Don't be lazy. Do what it takes to get out there and say I'm going to open doors, I will try things. I'm not afraid to make mistakes. Everything I tried to do doesn't have to be successful. In fact, if everything I do is successful, I'm not trying to do enough things. Allow yourself to do things and not succeed. And you know, the world will open up for you if you go into the world looking for things to do.

Kate M. 
That is a great answer. And I am a fellow introvert. And I do feel that when I am abroad, either studying or working, traveling, I do push myself a little bit more than I do when I'm here in my apartment in Brooklyn in my safe little space. It's more comfortable being an introvert here because everything's safe. Whereas when I'm abroad, I do have to tell myself, when are you going to have these opportunities again? You know what, you can nap later, just go out and do the thing.

Mitch B.
Well, I think if you can get yourself out the door. You know if you can get yourself out the door, the rest takes care of itself. You end up on the airplane, the airplane lands on the other side. And then you just have to try to understand, “Why NOT dance on the table?”

Kate M.
That's great. Yes, why not? Okay, and why is intercultural exchange important?
 
Mitch B.
I think intercultural exchange is important because we view the world, I view the world, through the lens that presents in front of me. It's the only lens I have, without stepping out from, from where I am.
Through intercultural exchange I begin to get a better view of the world through other people's lenses. I’d be able to understand the world through a perspective that is foreign to mine. We view the world, we have two eyes. And so there's that vision, but it's still incomplete. And if a pane of glass can be viewed in one direction, out, there's also that view, back in again.  And if you don't leave your chair and go outside and look back in, you don't get the full picture. So to me intercultural change is like leaving your chair, going to the other side of the pane of glass and looking in.
And I think that we, in a global community, need to do that more, because I think that we become frozen in the perspectives we have. We are, frankly, ignorant of other people's perspectives. And I think that's polarizing, I think, to live in other people's worlds to share that experience gives us a better view of social justice, of humanity, of empathy. And so maybe that's a long answer to a short question. But that's my perspective.

Kate M.
I asked Mitch if he had anything else to add…

Mitch B.
And so I'm eternally grateful for AFS for its opportunity to give me this kind of education that came outside of a classroom and outside the simple didactics of classroom teaching. I think the benefit of AFS is that students coming from one background, become immersed in another background and learn about it intimately and learn about it in three dimensions, which is very different than the education we get in the classroom. And I welcome AFS for offering that experience to people over the last 75 years.

Kate M.
That was Dr. Mitch Besser, founder of mothers2mothers and AFS participant to South Africa. A big thank you to Mitch and his team at m2m for their help with this episode. Mitch’s experience with AFS opened his eyes to life outside of the US. With activism being an important part of his upbringing through his grandmother, he is driven to help make the world a more just and peaceful place. And this has been AFS-USA’s goal for over 75 years now!

[Music]

Kate M.
Well, thank you for listening to The AFS Exchange! I’m Kate Mulvihill. Let us know what you thought of this episode by sending a message to podcast@afsusa.org. You can also rate and review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe there as well so you don’t miss any episodes in this 3rd season.

This podcast was created by Kate Mulvihill. Social media by Julie Ball and Nina Gaulin.