Discovery didn't just keep us going. They kept our community alive.
In the remote farmlands of Limpopo, a small clinic built on the belief that healthcare belongs to everyone — regardless of color, income, or documentation — came within days of closing its doors forever. Hlokomela, founded in 2005 by nurse Christine du Preez, had grown from four staff members tending fifty HIV patients into a lifeline for over 60,000 people annually across Mopani District. A 2018 partnership with the Discovery Fund did not simply rescue the organization — it reimagined how rural healthcare could sustain itself with dignity, a lesson that proved indispensable when a global pandemic arrived two years later.
- By 2018, Hlokomela could no longer meet payroll — a nationally recognized rural health model was days from permanent closure, leaving tens of thousands of farmworkers and migrants with nowhere to turn.
- Discovery Fund refused to offer a simple bailout, instead commissioning a pilot study that redesigned Hlokomela's entire financial architecture around employer subscriptions, affordable health cards, and community enterprise.
- The organization began generating its own income through herb and vegetable markets and rental properties — transforming from a charity dependent on goodwill into a resilient, multi-revenue institution.
- When COVID-19 struck, the stabilized infrastructure allowed Hlokomela to administer nearly 30,000 vaccinations to populations the national rollout would have bypassed entirely.
- Community health workers known as Nompilos — 'mothers of life' — remain the human core of the model, carrying two decades of trust into farming communities where that trust was once nearly impossible to build.
In 2018, Christine du Preez faced the end of everything she had built. Hlokomela, the HIV and AIDS clinic she had established in Hoedspruit, Limpopo, in 2005, had grown from four employees and fifty patients into a network of four clinics, 54 staff, and 72 community health workers reaching over 60,000 people a year. It was a nationally recognized model — and it was about to close because the money had run out.
When du Preez brought the crisis to the Discovery Fund, the response was not a rescue check but a redesign. Together, they built a partial payment system: employers could join a subsidized health club, individuals could purchase annual health cards for 990 rand, and walk-in patients could still access care at affordable rates. Hlokomela also began generating income through a fresh produce market and rental properties developed on two sites. These were not charity solutions — they were sustainable ones.
The model's resilience was tested almost immediately. When COVID-19 arrived, Hlokomela became a vaccination hub, administering nearly 30,000 doses to farmworkers, migrants, and community members who would otherwise have been excluded from the national rollout. Du Preez later reflected that Discovery had not merely kept the organization alive — it had kept the community alive.
The human foundation of Hlokomela has always been its Nompilos — community health workers whose presence in farming communities predates the arrival of antiretroviral drugs in Limpopo in 2010. Mpho Doris, one of the original Nompilos, describes watching people survive who would otherwise have died, and a community that has slowly learned to trust. Program Manager Antoinette Ngwenya witnessed the same slow transformation from the beginning.
Today, Hlokomela's services span HIV treatment, TB care, cancer screening, maternal health, and trauma support, with mobile clinics reaching the most remote farms. Discovery's head of corporate social investment describes the partnership as a model that deserves to be scaled and replicated. What began as a crisis became proof that rural healthcare can be both financially sustainable and genuinely dignified — because it was built on the conviction that no one should have to choose between their health and their survival.
In 2018, Christine du Preez faced a choice that would have ended two decades of work. Hlokomela, the HIV and AIDS clinic she had built in Hoedspruit, Limpopo, was running out of money. The salaries couldn't be paid. The doors were about to close. Thousands of farmworkers, migrants, and vulnerable people across the region would lose access to the only reliable healthcare many of them had ever known.
Du Preez had started small in 2005, driven by something she'd learned growing up in a medical household—her father a doctor, her mother a nurse. She'd wanted to be a social worker but became a nurse instead, and when she arrived in Hoedspruit, she began offering primary healthcare on the farms themselves. Four employees. Fifty patients with HIV. That was the beginning. By 2018, Hlokomela had grown to 54 staff members and 72 community health workers—women known as Nompilos, "mothers of life" in isiZulu—running four fixed clinics and reaching over 60,000 people each year. The organization had become a nationally recognized model. And it was about to disappear.
When du Preez told the Discovery Fund that closure was inevitable, something shifted. Discovery didn't simply write a check. They commissioned a pilot study. They worked with the Hlokomela team to design something new: a partial payment system that would create multiple revenue streams while keeping care affordable. Employers could subscribe to the Hlokomela Employers' Health Club at a discount. Individuals could buy annual health cards for 990 rand, gaining access to most services for a year. Walk-in clients without either option could still access care at affordable rates. The organization also began growing and selling fresh herbs, vegetables, and dried fruit in the local market. Two properties were developed into a retirement haven that generated rental income. These weren't charity solutions. They were sustainable ones.
The partnership proved its worth almost immediately. Two years after Hlokomela stabilized, COVID-19 arrived. The clinic became a vaccination hub, administering nearly 30,000 doses to farmworkers, migrants, and community members—people who would have been left out of the national rollout entirely. Du Preez later reflected on what would have happened if Discovery hadn't intervened in 2018: "If we had closed, what would have happened during the pandemic? Discovery didn't just keep us going. They kept our community alive."
The work itself has always been rooted in something deeper than logistics. Mpho Doris, one of the Nompilos, began with the organization in 2005 when educating farmworkers about HIV felt nearly impossible. People were dying. Antiretroviral drugs didn't arrive in Limpopo until 2010. "Many are still alive because of it," Doris says of Hlokomela's presence. "I've seen the change since 2005. People trust me more. They're more open." She describes herself as uneducated but speaks of her work as a calling—something God gave her to do.
Program Manager Antoinette Ngwenya was there from the beginning too, watching the slow transformation of a community's relationship with healthcare and with itself. Du Preez had built the organization on a principle she'd inherited from her father: you don't see color, you just help people. That ethos shaped everything—the way patients were treated, the way staff understood their purpose, the way the organization moved through the community.
Today, Hlokomela serves farmworkers, seasonal migrants, sex workers, and lodge employees across Mopani District. The services have expanded beyond HIV treatment to include TB care, cancer screening, maternal and child health, and trauma support. Mobile clinics reach remote farming communities. Andronica Mabuya, head of group corporate social investment at Discovery, describes the partnership as obvious: "Our purpose is to make people healthier and enhance and protect lives. Hlokomela is not just a health initiative—it's a movement. It's a model that has shown great success and one that deserves to be scaled, replicated, and celebrated."
What began as a crisis in 2018 became a demonstration of how rural healthcare could be both sustainable and dignified. The model works because it doesn't ask vulnerable people to choose between their health and their survival. It works because it treats the people delivering care as essential—as people with purpose. And it works because when the next crisis came, the infrastructure was there.
Citações Notáveis
Discovery didn't just keep us going—they kept our community alive.— Christine du Preez, founder and director of Hlokomela
Many are still alive because of it. I've seen the change since 2005. People trust me more. They're more open.— Mpho Doris, community health worker (Nompilo) at Hlokomela
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
Why did Discovery Fund do more than just fund Hlokomela? Why the pilot study, the design work, the long-term partnership?
Because a check alone doesn't solve the problem. If you just give money to an organization that's structurally unsustainable, you're delaying collapse, not preventing it. Discovery saw that Hlokomela had something worth saving—a model, a team, a community relationship—but it needed to be redesigned to work in a rural economy where people don't have much cash.
The partial payment system sounds clever, but did farmworkers actually buy into it? Did they trust it?
That's the thing—trust was already there. Mpho Doris had been working in those communities since 2005. People knew her. They knew the clinic worked. The payment system just made it possible to keep the doors open without asking people to pay more than they could afford.
What would have happened without Discovery's intervention in 2018?
The clinic closes. Du Preez goes home. The 72 community health workers lose their jobs. Two years later, when COVID hits, there's no vaccination hub for the people who would be excluded from the national rollout. You're looking at preventable deaths in a region that was already fragile.
Is this just a story about money saving an organization, or is it something else?
It's about what happens when you treat rural healthcare as a system that needs to be sustainable, not just charitable. It's about recognizing that the people delivering care—the Nompilos, the nurses—are doing essential work that deserves to be valued and paid for. And it's about a model that actually works, which is rare enough that it deserves to be replicated.
Du Preez talks about her father treating patients in his home surgery without seeing color. Is that just sentiment, or does it shape how Hlokomela actually operates?
It shapes everything. The way patients are treated, the way staff understand their purpose, the way the organization moves through the community. You can't fake that. People know when they're being treated with dignity and when they're not.