A guiding hand for community based organisations through mentoring
	Care-Kits Care Kits ... British High Commission: Perhaps one of the greatest needs of an Aids patient, is simple nursing care and basic personal hygiene. In the later stages of the disease the patients are too weak even to bath themselves. While family members may be willing to help, in many of these poor communities people lack the resources and the know how to carry out this simple care and ensure good hygiene. The CBO’s with which we are working have been offering this basic home based nursing care. But there was a great need for basic equipment. The Barnabas Trust therefore approached the British High Commission (BHC) with a request for R120 000 for 120 home base care kits that could be used by the volunteers in 5 of our mentored CBO’s. The funding was granted, and the kits have now been distributed, to the delight of the volunteers and their clients. Before the BHC donation of the kits, CBO volunteers were trying to provide help with a pitiful minimum of resources. Now each has a kit containing items like: linen savers (a plastic lined absorption blanket so that patients can be bed bathed on their own bed), creams, soaps, antiseptic ointment, bandage, wound cleaner, a thermometer, scissors, plasters, gloves, aprons, rehydrate sachets, build up energy supplements and much more. And the good news is that bulk supplies are in place to replenish the 120 kits as consumables are being used. Each home base care kit is packed into a backpack, as many Aids patients in the rural areas are a long walking distance away from the nearest road and even in urban areas travel by car is a luxury for volunteer’s helpers. By request of the volunteers an umbrella rather then a raincoat is included in the kit because sizes differ and the umbrella also protects them from the harsh African sun when it is not raining. The backpack is printed with the CBO’s name which cements their identity with the community. Volunteers can now give care with a greater confidence, knowing that they themselves will not become infected and their patients are receiving a far higher level of care. And as the volunteers teach families how best to care for their loved ones who are ill, the resources from the kits can help them too. One of the beauties of being a Mentor is seeing the organisations progressing in front of your eyes. On this particular day we droved to Masivuke (Meaning Lets wake up ) in Keiskammahoek in the former Ciskei. This time we did not come for an ordinary mentoring visit, but to deliver the home- based care kits that had been donated by the BHC. On our arrival we were welcomed by shouts of joy from volunteers. Four student doctors from Cape University accompanied the Sister from the S.S. Gida Hospital. They were there to help in explaining to the volunteers how to use all the products in the kits. The presentation was followed by tears of joy, as the staff and volunteers accepted their kits. Songs, prayers and praise to God were the order of the day. Judy (Project Manager) said: “We thank Barnabas Trust for their commitment to grow organisation like Masivuke” We left with unending thanks from the staff. Victims can now die with dignity and the volunteers have more than earned the right to speak into the lives of those people not yet infected. It is from counselling from these volunteers that the community will be most likely to change their sexual behavior patterns. The BHC care kits give more than access to good hygiene. They open the doors to credibility; change in attitude and a start to turning the tide on the pandemic of Aids. “If the BHC would only have been with me when I handed out the care kits to the Eastern Cape Gender and Development Program” said Roselba Ross from The Barnabas Trust. “I wish I had a video camera to record it. The ECGDP staff looked into the kits and some of them started to cry. They could not believe what they were looking at. Tears. There can be no more appreciation than that”. Rose went with a volunteer to wash a patient. If even the volunteers were crying with appreciation one can only wonder how thankful the patient felt. Thank you BHC. By Pumezo Pantsi Mentor Pumezo delivering Home Based Care Kits to Masivuke Mrs Elsie Siwephu with Sister Nkolothi,HIV Co-ordinator at S.S. Gida Hospital, Keiskammahoek Willowvale Aid Action Group Carers receiving their Home Based Care Kits
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