July News for Sofi, Champagne Valley

June/July Strelitzia Newsletter

We are in!.....and busy doing up two of more than 12 classrooms at the old school site. Soon to become a ‘drop-in’ centre and hospice. The first room will be an open plan office, incorporating a help desk offering advice on welfare matters and home affairs.

The second room to be commissioned will provide an all-weather home for a twice-monthly mobile clinic, currently housed under a tree. With luck and a good deal of encouragement of government departments we hope to gradually build up to a full time facility open on a daily basis.

Other members of the community are now getting excited and wanting to become involved. So, from these modest beginnings, we may develop into a much more comprehensive service.

The potential improvement in the lives of people resident in the local township of is hard to imagine. Currently a sick person has to travel 25 kms to the nearest clinic, spend all day waiting in the hope (often not realised) of receiving an accurate diagnosis (also something of a gamble) and being prescribed treatment which corresponds to the diagnosis.
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We are constantly trying to match what we can offer to the needs of the community. As part of this process four of our Home Bases Carers (all volunteers) have just completed a door-to-door survey. This has enabled us to focus on the more pressing needs and not become side-tracked by the ever-present requests for help. But the aim, as always, is to promote self-sufficiency.

Cindy, who has been working with me, is amazing and a huge asset. She has been heading up the survey in the township and hopes that, once finished, we can do the same thing in her village.

The down-side is that such projects create an even heavier load on the Home Based Carers. There are approx 14,000 people in Khetani alone, not including the surrounding farms and villages, and virtually every household has at least one member infected, most often with HIV/AIDS or TB. We are even finding orphans of 15 years pregnant and HIV positive.

What is the answer? The parents, at best, are stretched just getting them to school and providing sufficient food. They do not have the wherewithal to discipline them or hold them to account. Then they die leaving no one to support these children in the basics necessities of life

We will attempt to provide a long term answer, starting with the four new crèches. The aim being to establish discipline and values which will continue through primary and secondary education. Currently the role models on whom these children have to rely are often sick, impoverished and possibly abusive parents and family members. Teachers and local officials are often corrupt and guilty of sexual misconduct. Little wonder we are faced with infectious diseases and childhood pregnancies. But improvements are possible and have occurred in the past. To wit, the Steiner School founded by Nino but, sadly, no longer in existence. The products of that school, of which Cindy was one, have great personal integrity and strong leadership attributes.

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The day care centre will offer a vital service to working Mums, who are often faced with the choice of carrying the child on their back all day as they work in the fields or keeping an older sibling off school to care for the baby. Already the routine of bringing children to the bright, clean crèche has encouraged the mothers to show greater pride in their children, particularly their cleanliness. Being fed twice a day shows in the energy and alertness of the children. Adequate food and some personal attention is turning them into new people and demonstrating that change for the better is always possible.

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A young HIV positive mum with whom I have worked with for nearly a year is now living with me. She is four months pregnant and her alcoholic husband has just put her in hospital for a week after beating her. Herself, an orphan, with two children living with another family and two babies who died. All that and now homeless....
it seems like the women’s shelter has started.

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Despite these dramas, things really are coming together and we are beginning to offer a more holistic support to people within this community.............and I have finally received the plans for my house so am hoping that work will start soon.

Thank you again for all your support in helping this come about..