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25:40 has adopted as a partner the village of Hamburg, South Africa, and outlying villages in the larger Peddie South District.
Hamburg's green rolling hills lie at the mouth of the Keiskamma River and on the shores of the Indian Ocean. But its beauty belies its poverty. Hamburg has a very rich history, but the effects of apartheid have left the village in despair. The people there are quite poor - relying only on government grants and migrant wages for income.
But hope has come to Hamburg in the form of The Keiskamma Trust, which is an umbrella organization that supports social, cultural and economic development projects in Hamburg and neighboring villages. 25:40 is a dedicated partner. After coming out of retirement and staffing a small general clinic in Hamburg beginning in 2000, Dr. Carol Baker found that people were dying rapidly of AIDS and there was no treatment available. With the help of 25:40, she began acquiring ARVs privately to treat those who were most sick. As her AIDS practice grew, the Trust qualified for a grant through the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief to receive ARVs. Now the South African government is providing ARVs for free at qualified clinics. With the help of 25:40 and other donors, the Umtha Welanga Health Care Center opened its doors in the center of Hamburg. It was the first clinic dedicated solely to HIV/AIDS patients in the Peddie South District.
Umtha Welanga is staffed by excellent nurses, AIDS counselors Eunice Mangwane and Mavis Zita and physician Dr. Carol Baker.
The health care center is a beacon of hope, providing physical and spiritual healing to those who need it most. Not only does the health care center provide excellent medical care to AIDS patients, but the staff educates patients on HIV and AIDS, and counsels them and their families. The staff also trains community workers in outlying villages to serve as AIDS monitors, neighbors who check in on AIDS patients discharged from the health care center to ensure they are taking their medication properly and to provide support to them and their families. 25:40 helps pay for the operation of the health care center and the salaries of the AIDS monitors.
The health care center has a small wing used as a mother-child health care center. Here women and their children can receive regular exams for general medical issues as well as testing, education and treatment for HIV and AIDS.
Click here for a report with much greater detail on the 25:40 trip to Hamburg.
HOKISA (Home for Kids in South Africa) is a beacon of hope in the middle of Masiphumelele, where 30,000 people live in metal shacks and 30 percent of the population is stricken with HIV. The concrete home sits on a small plot of land, half of which is dedicated to a public playground where children from all of Masiphumelele can come play during designated hours. Inside HOKISA, rooms are brightly painted, and one whole wall in the big playroom is a beautiful, bright and colorful mural. Eight staff members care for the children in shifts around the clock. The staff live in Masiphumelele and are being trained in nutrition, hygiene and basic health care, including how to dispense medicine. Fifteen children currently live at HOKISA. They range in age from infants to teenagers. Most of the children who live there full-time are HIV+.
The children at HOKISA may still have family in the town, and family members are encouraged to visit the children. HOKISA strives to create a homelike atmosphere. The children call the women employees "Mama" and the men "boetie," meaning brother in Afrikaans. The staff speak to the children in their native language, mostly Xhosa, to maintain a sense of identity for the children. Family bonds are strong in HOKISA and in the larger Masiphumelele community, but families are being destroyed by AIDS.
Kidzpositive is a pilot pediatric HIV/AIDS clinic at Groote Schuur hospital in Cape Town, run by Dr. Paul Roux. As of early March 2004, he had treated 207 children with HIV or full-blown AIDS and 60 mothers. Those numbers continue to rise. The families that come to the clinic are poor and many are unemployed. They are compensated through Kidzpositive Family Fund for the bus fare to and from the hospital. The antiretroviral medicines that are used are 3TC and AZT for AIDS patients and nevaripene for pregnant mothers. The outpatient clinic is so much more than a hospital waiting room.
As in any hospital, the ward offers in-patient care for those children who are suffering from secondary problems of AIDS - chest infections, severe diarrhea, meningitis, pneumonia, and many other maladies. The clinic also serves as a beadworking center for mothers, grandmothers, aunts and other caregivers of the patients, as a means to earn income for proper nutrition and primary care. This is an important part of the treatment because antiretroviral medications are ineffective if a child is malnourished or suffers from basic health deficiencies.
The families who come to the clinic are courageous. They have faced the stigma of admitting that they and their children have HIV/AIDS. They are coming to the clinic at least once a month for treatment and once a week for the beadwork. These children are the lucky ones.
TABY is an organization dedicated to improving the lives of poverty-stricken children in the temporary settlement of Ivory Park, South Africa. These children face death every day, through hunger, violence, AIDS, cold, or lack of sanitation. Many of them have only one parent, or no parents at all. Some are raised by their older siblings, because all other guardians have died or left. All of these children need help, and that is exactly what TABY is trying to do ~ help them.