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December 4, 2006 posting

Executive Directors' Update

The period since the last Board meeting has been very productive, and there have been several important breakthroughs:

Health

We have been told we will be a health post, a clinic, back to a health post, back to a clinic, etc.  Ms. Radebe, Director of Health for Sisonke District now confirms that, though Ndawana is much too small to have a “clinic” we will be some newly-defined version of a clinic, offering essentially all the services of a clinic.  Some of the reasons why we will have the clinic status are:

• We have done voluntary counseling and HIV testing (VCT) in four communities surrounding Underberg at the request of the Family Literacy Program (FLP).  60 facilitators and learners were counseled and tested by our community health workers (formerly called home based care workers).  This gave extra practice in VCT to our people, and FLP reimbursed us for all costs incurred.

• 750-800 people have now been tested in Ndawana and the communities above.  By contrast, the regional hospital, St. Apollinaris, hopes to have tested a total of 900 people by the end of February.  Our community has about 3800 people.  The St. Apollinaris catchment area is about 100,000 people.

• We have 60-70 people on ARVs which is triple that of Underberg clinic.

• We do VCT one day a week on a scheduled basis, and there typically are some 20 people coming every week.  In addition, the community health workers do VCT in people’s homes, and most days at least one person drops in to the centre requesting VCT.

• All blood work is now done in Ndawana.  We draw blood and transport it to Underberg for delivery to the regional lab.

• As of January 31 ARVs will be delivered in Ndawana through a joint venture with the Department of Health and Valley Trust.  We are continuing to develop these ties, and have an important meeting with them on Monday, 27 November.  This is the “ARV rollout” we had hoped to have, and it’s coming much earlier than anticipated.

• We will have a full-time nurse starting in January.

• Finally, our domestic staff at Douglas Drift have suggested we do VCT for everyone in the area where we live, which is called Scotston Valley.  We are very positively inclined to offer counseling and testing to our neighbours.

Orphan Support

We have had a serious roadblock in obtaining documents and grants due to the reticence of the Municipality of Umzimkhulu to provide these services.  New developments include:

• Kokstad Municipality for Home Affairs (HA, the agency that provides documents) has agreed to work with us even though we are not in their district. (They are less than half the distance to Umzimkhulu). On 21 November they came to Ndawana with a team of five people and processed some 250 people (exact numbers won’t be known until they come again on 28 November to deliver birth certificates and their statistics for the visit).  IDs weren’t processed because they require photos and the photographer ran out of film, but he did produce 40 photos, and their visit on the 28th will deal with IDs as well as the unprocessed people for the other documents.

• The lead man from HA also offered to talk with the Social Development (SD) Department in Kokstad to see if they also will send a team to Ndawana.  SD is the agency that deals with the grants, and they must see both caregivers and children to process a grant application.  If they do come to Ndawana that will save us transporting hundreds of caregivers and children to their office, or to the office in Umzimkhulu.

• We have been in contact with the provincial office of SD previously, and at a meeting with them on 24 November they informed us that they have had extensive conversation with the SD head in Umzimkhulu and obtained a commitment from them to work with us on a more effective basis.  They also talked with the Department of Justice (necessary for some grants) and provided an introduction with them.  In addition, they offered to support us in getting support either from Kokstad or Ixopo, which they say would be much preferred over trying to work with Umzimkhulu.  Overall, we expect a much improved access to documentation and grants in the future.

• The orphan house is finished and occupied.  We have hired two women to work jointly as house mother and to provide basic catering and cleaning for the community centre. We have one orphan baby living with them and two older orphans currently living at the house.  We will continue to decide on the most appropriate orphans to fill out the expected residency of six orphans at any given time.  We also will begin working to provide the foster care grants for the orphans living in the house.

Education

On a school field trip to Durban in October there was a serious bus accident that injured several students and put ten teachers in hospital, seven of them remained there after more than a month.  As a result, the school lost all their English teachers.  We met with the impacted schools and offered to help in any way possible. Sharman and Laurel, along with Zanele and Busisiwe Memela invigilated several of the grade 9 exams and then did all the marking. As well we provided all photocopying saving the school several 160 km round trips to Kokstad. We are also discussing other joint initiatives.  They are keen for us to take on the entire English program.  We are more than hesitant to actually take on the program, but we are exploring ways to provide teaching and experience in English without taking on the administrative burden and program burden of actually offering the program.

Sharman, Laurel and Zanele have initiated a soccer program for girls with good success.  We are hoping that this will help to increase self esteem in this group as well as providing a venue for conversation about HIV.   

Volunteers

Laurel Collins and Sharman Hynatiuk were with us for about two months.  Laurel arrived a month earlier than Sharman, and because another volunteer was unable to come as expected we asked her to spend that month with the Clouds of Hope orphanage in Underberg.  She was very happy to have had that experience, and it helped to give us closer working ties with the orphanage.  In addition, Caitlin Ryan and Russ Fenske have been here for six weeks, and will stay until early March.  All four of these volunteers have been outstanding.  Russ and Caitlin will be here to manage programs during our absence from 1-29 December.

We are anticipating that Susan Green and her son JD will come for the May-June 15 period to manage the programs during our sabbatical in May-early September.  We are planning for an overlap with them in Underberg in the first week of May for briefing and at least another week in June/July for debriefing in Edmonton.  Their time here makes it possible for us to take the sabbatical, which would be very difficult to arrange otherwise (see Community Centre Council below).  We expect to be in Edmonton from about the 15th of June through the first week in July, and we hope the AGM can be scheduled for the end of June.  Ideally an experienced volunteer could then take over from Susan and JD for all or part of the period of mid-June to the end of August.

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