- nurses, health visitors and counsellors
- nutritionists
- early childhood development practitioners
- life skills education and development
- the programme would also welcome pro-active people to help with feeding, caring for and playing constructively with the young children, mainly under 6 years old.
The Emmanuel Advice and Care Centre (EACC) needs skilled and experienced volunteers to help in:
• the pre-school
• capacity building for community carers who support HIV sufferers
• working with orphans and vulnerable children
• the feeding programme
The project
As the pandemic of HIV and AIDS is being addressed on all levels within South African society, a large burden of care is shifted to the (often poor) communities themselves.
For some people, the reality of the situation has been a call to action. Refusing to ignore what was happening around the people she lived with, social worker Lydia Koopman started the EACC in Kwa-Noxolo, Port Elizabeth a few years ago. Along with like-minded people, the EACC continues to bring much needed relief and assistance to people infected or affected by HIV in the communities of Kwa-Noxolo, Nceba Faku, Jacksonville and Kleinskool.
The team includes many unpaid volunteers, and continues to build an effective, caring, learning organization which now directly supports over 1300 adults and children.
EACC has more than 30 care givers, each of whom currently visits approximately 80 homes where the families are affected by HIV/AIDS. All the carers are drawn from the community and are the backbone of support for these families who they visit on a bi-weekly basis. The carers provide education on positive living and prevention, and refer people to relevant agencies which can provide support, be they government or other NGO’s, helping people to understand what grants they may be able to access. They also provide a listening ear, offer love and care, and try and encourage and help the people they meet who are in need. The centre has at least 600 clients, and also assists in supporting nearly 700 orphans and vulnerable children in the main centre and satellites.
EACC is very much a grass roots, community based NGO, and as such, it is continuously identifying needs, and trying to address them holistically. It is constantly trying to support more people, and has a wide range of programmes which include:
1. Care and Support through the Home Based Care Programme
2. HIV Prevention through one to one counselling and education initiatives
3. Support Groups for the Elderly, Orphaned and Vulnerable Children, people living with HIV/AIDS and their carers
4. Creche provision for pre-school children
5. Life skills for 9 to 16 year olds
6. Nutritional Programme – including its own small vegetable garden
7. Advocacy work and developing relationships with other NGOs and agencies.
8. Economic Empowerment through small business initiatives and support groups
Context
The 4 different communities served by the EACC are home for over 150,000 people. Like most townships in South Africa, they are characterized by a history of poverty, underdevelopment and segregation. Today they comprise ‘coloured” and African (Xhosa) families, living in shacks, older apartheid “matchbox” houses and newly developed housing.
What is uniform, as well as the physical structure is poverty, unemployment, social problems such as alcohol- and drug-abuse, and HIV and AIDS. Many households are headed by single mothers, grandmothers, and a few child headed households.
"As we prepared for our long journey back to the office after our home visits, I felt drained and void. My emotions for these women were those of wanting to take their pain and suffering away. I wanted to do more. I began to think how strong the carers must be to be able to go into these homes on a day to day basis to see these people and care for them. They were truly heros in my book" Volunteer Karen
