As always there is lots of news since our last newsletter also lots of changes, challenges and progress….

Volunteers

Two more new volunteers, Sponello and Mafika have joined the team; both live in the local township and are great guys who have asked to work on the health team with Sindi . They will be doing first aid home visits and will soon be trained in testing and counselling for HIV/Aids.

We are also lucky to have two young German volunteers Miriam and Lisa who will be working with us for the next year. Lisa is working fulltime in the baby day care centre assisting with setting up new systems and integrating some physically and mentally challenged babies into the existing group.

Miriam is working with Mzi covering the whole township referring new babies / children into the baby day care and crèches. Our aim is to take the children of mums who are working and children in vulnerable situations. They are also working with the older children who are having problems going to school due to social and financial issues.

They are a huge gift to our existing team and working together really well.

 

HIV/Aids testing outreach workshops

With the support of Sue Stockil a local retired nurse we are putting together a group of local women to assist in getting the HIV/Aids testing and counseling workshops on the road. We are planning to have an internal workshop this month with Sue and her team and the isibani staff to work out the details of the workshops. Ideally we will set a 12 month calendar for workshops and hope to get the HIV message spread far and wide. With the new volunteers trained in HIV testing and counselling we will be in good shape.

The strike

We never though t it could happen again. 3 years ago there was a national government employee strike, hundreds died and hundreds more will live with the consequences of no access to treatment for over a month. This year the strike came again, all government department stopped working, social workers, schools and hospitals. The few who wanted to continue to provide services were threatened both verbally and physically and were forced to stop working.

We spent 3 weeks driving up and down to the local hospital with patient’s clinic cards; picking up the tablets that keep them alive whilst praying that the strikers would leave us alone.

Retired nurses assisted with delivering babies and giving injections and putting in drips, we must have processed more than 500 prescriptions for people over this time. But we must ask what about all the others that did not live close to us or to another facility that could assist them ?

And all this because the government does not know how to define emergency services!

The Board

We are busy putting together an advisory board of people that are committed to supporting the local community and will give us advice and support on the decisions we are making everyday and how we can best deliver our services. We have been very blessed to have some wonderful people volunteer to sit on this board.

Charity Shop

We have a large distribution centre of clothes, bedding and kitchen equipment donated to us to distribute into the community. Often we have lots of certain types of clothes and very few of the items in high demand. With this in mind we are hoping to set up a charity shop to sell the surplus items and use the income to buy more of the items we need.

 

Kitchen

We have received a donation of approx R50,000 to fully equip our kitchen … hoorah! Many thanks to Tris Bekkers who helped us to access this funding through Femmes D’Europe.

We are hoping to start and afternoon kiddies club to be run by Sandile. We will have games, homework support and will supply food for the children too.

We continue to supply food for the very sick until they are back on their feet. We process whatever we receive which includes bread, vegetables and meat. We are also able to supply the kitchen from our own vegetable garden which is doing very well.

 Soon we aim to start producing food for the babies at the day care centre and some of the vulnerable children at the crèche. This way we can ensure they receive healthy and nutritious food.

 

School Clothes

We have received a donation of R10,000 for buying school clothes. Many thanks to Winterton Methodist Church for this generous contribution.

Every year children drop out of school simply because they do not have the necessary school uniform. This money will help us to get these children back into school.

There are also a number of children that do not attend crèche because they do not have sufficient clothes in good enough condition, we will use this donation to support this children too.

Other visitors

Since the last newsletter we have had a few visiting volunteers:

John, Sofi’s father recently spent a few weeks with us which was very helpful. His time was spent largely transporting sick patients around and picking up their treatment. This coincided in part with Anne returning to the UK to fulfil work obligations so it was great to have another pair of hands on board.

Erin and Cameron from Australia are also back with us for a 6 week visit. Cam is busy fixing anything and everything and sorting out all our computer issues.

Erin has been busy helping us with grant applications, systems and leadership training skills. We are hoping that Cam may be able to construct a children’s play area at the centre before they have to leave

Claire, from the UK, spent a couple of weeks with us and was very hands on with treatment of some of our physically handicapped patients. As a qualified chiropractor she was of immense help and achieved some amazing results considering her limited time.

 

News from our volunteers

ANSWER TO AN UNSPOKEN PRAYER by John Cogley

The Drakensberg in winter: mornings and evenings are cold, the remainder of the day is hot. Do you freeze or sweat or do you change clothes to accommodate the weather is as elusive a question as determining the meaning of life?

This dilemma is at its most acute when doing the Emmaus Hospital run. A car load of patients is dispersed round the hospital to various departments. Some will receive efficient and speedy attention while the process for others may be a less clear cut affair. In other words, you are in for a long day.

I was confronted with this very problem on a recent visit. By 4.00pm the evening chill was setting in and I decided that it was time for warmer clothing. There being no suitable space available, changing in the car seemed my best option. I managed to successfully remove my shoes and shorts but found that one of the penalties of getting older is a loss of flexibility. As a result, getting into my long trousers in a small car proved impossible. Noting that there were no observers in the area I climbed out of the car in order to facilitate the ‘donning of the Daks’. In so doing I managed, unintentionally, to lock myself out of the car, leaving inside not only the keys but my mobile phone. I now stood, semi-naked, uncertain as to my next action but only too aware that people, previously absent but now only too present. I crouched behind the car and debated whether I should try to pray my way out of this unfortunate situation.

 This thought raised a philosophical issue. Is it reasonable to pray for deliverance when the disaster is of one’s own making? Clearly not a question to be answered in a few minutes and, therefore, postponed in favour of more direct action. I then spied a two Rand coin in the grass nearby. Possibly, just possibly, this could be my salvation. Furtively I reached for the coin and, still trying to shield myself from prying eyes, attempted to edge down the car window using the coin as a lever. In hindsight this was a variation on the theme of the drowning man clutching for a straw but, at the time, it seemed a rational approach. Needless to say the tactic was unsuccessful and, as I persevered, I was increasingly conscious that a half naked man trying to break into a car with a two Rand coin was an invitation to arrest and, quite possibly, a lengthy term of incarceration. Were I able to speak Zulu I might have been able to talk my way out of my predicament. Being unable to do simply added another reason for an unhappy ending.

I began to wish that I had devoted my energies to the resolving the philosophical problem, noted above, rather than diverting them into an activity which greatly enhanced my chances of ending the day behind bars. These gloomy thoughts were upper most in my mind when a voice spoke to me from above. Not, I hasten to add, the voice of an angel but a very human voices. Not quite catching the words I assumed the worst. I was being challenged for the act of public indecency as well as that of car theft. Assuming an expression which I hoped convened both innocence and remorse, I looked up in the direction of the voice. Two young women starred down at me. Their being female somehow seemed to make my crime even more culpable. I was about to claim a psychiatric disorder which rendered me incapable of civilized behaviour when they asked, in voices full of compassion and in English: “Can we do anything to help you?”

Minutes later a man arrived with a piece of wire and I was re-united with my drawers, my keys and my mobile phone. The vision of a life in prison was fast receding. I might not have had contact with 22 carat angels but an unspoken prayer had most certainly been answered.