Lucrecia Minnaar Foundation
The Lucrecia Minnaar Foundation NPC

Endometriosis is real.
You will be believed here.

A South African non-profit built for women and girls living with endometriosis — support that meets you where the pain is and a push for the diagnosis, care and research this country still owes you.

Support the Foundation See what we do
7–10 yrs
typical delay between first symptoms and diagnosis in South Africa
1 in 10
women and girls of reproductive age affected globally
9
founding objects guiding everything the Foundation does
"Established exclusively to address endometriosis in South Africa — to raise awareness, provide direct support, improve diagnosis and treatment, fund research and educate a country that has dismissed this disease for too long." Founding purpose, Memorandum of Incorporation
Our symbol

Every part of the calla lily means something.

The calla lily is the Foundation's mark, chosen deliberately. It carries the same layered meaning we ask people to hold for endometriosis itself: something that looks singular from a distance, but is built from parts that each deserve their own understanding.

Flower Beauty · Dignity · Value
Sprout Growth · Empowerment · Awareness
Stem Faith · Love · Pride · Hope
Leaf Support · Protection · Safety
Diagram of a calla lily labelled with the Foundation's symbolic meaning: flower represents beauty, dignity and value; sprout represents growth, empowerment and awareness; stem represents faith, love, pride and hope; leaf represents support, protection and safety.
What we do

Six commitments, one condition.

Every programme the Foundation runs traces back to our founding objects. Nothing here is generic non-profit language — it's what we're legally and practically built to do.

01

Support that doesn't ask you to prove your pain

Peer support networks, counselling referrals and direct access to accurate medical information — for those carrying severe pain, disability, depression, anxiety or fatigue every day.

Direct support services
02

Awareness that names the disease

Public campaigns that combat stigma and medical dismissal, so women and girls know: this is real, serious and diagnosable.

03

Research grounded in South Africa

Funding studies into local prevalence, access to laparoscopic diagnosis and treatment pathways that actually work here.

04

Faster diagnosis, better care

Education and collaborative engagement with healthcare providers and policymakers, working to close the diagnostic delay gap.

05

Resources in your language

Educational materials developed and distributed in multiple South African languages, prioritising underserved and rural communities.

06

Care providers as partners

Working directly with hospitals, clinics, gynaecologists, GPs and physiotherapists to raise the standard of endometriosis care nationwide.

Portrait of Lucrecia Minnaar Why this foundation exists

Named for a woman who lived it.

Lucrecia Minnaar has lived with endometriosis her entire life. Years of undiagnosed pain. Dismissal by the medical professionals she turned to for answers. The isolation of a condition few around her understood and the resilience it took to keep going regardless.

Her experience is not unique. It reflects what millions of women endure in silence, told their pain is normal, exaggerated, or imagined, until a diagnosis finally arrives, if it arrives at all.

This Foundation was not built by studying that experience from the outside. It was built from inside it. Every object in our founding document, from peer support to policy engagement to multilingual education, exists so that no woman or girl in South Africa has to walk that path as alone as she once did.

— In honour of Lucrecia Minnaar
How we work

Built on collaboration, not isolation.

We don't try to be a hospital. We work alongside the people and institutions that already treat, teach and care for South African women.

Clinical

Hospitals, clinics & specialists

Working with gynaecologists, general practitioners, physiotherapists and healthcare providers to raise the standard of endometriosis care available across South Africa.

Policy

Public & private healthcare systems

Engaging policymakers and health administrators directly, with the explicit aim of reducing the average diagnostic delay patients currently face.

Workplace & school

Employers & educators

Helping the people around patients — teachers, managers, colleagues — understand the physical, emotional, reproductive and economic impact of the disease.

Community

Peer networks

Connecting women and girls to others who understand, without requiring anyone to justify the severity of what they're going through.

Resources

Care shouldn't depend on which language you speak.

We're developing educational resources across South Africa's languages, with particular attention to underserved and rural communities who are too often left out first.

English Afrikaans isiXhosa isiZulu Sesotho + more coming
Get involved

Fund the support that shouldn't be optional.

Every donation, grant or sponsorship goes directly toward support services, research and education for women and girls living with endometriosis in South Africa. Donations are processed securely through PayFast.

Partner with us Contact the Foundation

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Secured by PayFast. EFT, card and instant EFT accepted. Section 18A tax certificates available on request once PBO approval is finalised.