We are getting a bit slack with keeping up, but we are busy, busy, busy! There’s so much to see still. Plus when you find the projects that are really make such a difference its hard to keep to schedules when you stay with them and watch their good work all day! Still we must and we do. This morning we met with Caroline Horn and 40 very noisy children all waiting for their weekend food supplement. We then went to tour a local valley Kwa-Ximba.
Afterwards we visited another valley Sankontshe where we met up with the local community health workers who also run a small NGO, feeding 194 orphans 3 times a week. They like others are struggling. They are frontline staff who are also expected to fundraise and manage the needs of the children against those of administration. For several reason each has become equally important as one dictates the success of the other. They need R4000 per month roughly £400 to run their programme, they have a small amount coming from the central government but it barely meets the need. Again when we get back we will see what we can do! We then went to the site of a house that will be built in conjunction with Goodwill and Growth for Africa and the help of the Scottish community in Brechin. We were very happy to see the area had been cleared and blocks at the ready once the builder has been primed the work will begin!
We then moved onto Georgedale to meet with the local ANC Councillor who represents 44,000 people in 3 separate areas. His name is Councillor Shabalala, charming guy and one who is profoundly popular with whom he represents. He has a rate of unemployment which would make your eyes water almost 70%. He faces huge challenges and it was an honour that he had taken the time to meet with us and that he was more than pleased we had shown an expression of interest to help projects in his area.
We then went to visit a house in Georgedale, there was a girl of 13 there, her sister who is twenty is very sick and at the clinic. In the corner of the plot of land lay two freshly dug graves, one for her Mother and Sister who had both died very recently. The house is starting to fall down and the girl’s father is also very sick and not living in the same area. I must point out that the area where we are focusing our attention has an HIV infection rate of 1 in 3 and that is of those who we know about. “Sick” 7 times out of 10 means HIV. Another interesting fact is that recently the South African Government acknowledged it would not reach its target of 80% of the people infected with HIV that would get the medicines which help to manage the disease and prolong life in a very ordinary way. Yet they just spent over £5 billion on a world cup! The girl of 13 Nomvula still manages to go to school but when we were shown her school shoes which had no sole and a school dress hen pecked with holes she had been fortunate to be allowed to continue. In South Africa you have to pay to go to school - no money no school in many circumstances, you must also have an immaculate uniform if not you can also be sent away. Nomvula must have an understanding principle for which she is lucky as many others are not. We took her dress away to repair it (no not Charlie or me) and Charlie is funding the purchase of a new pair of school shoes.
We then went on to meet Sithembakuye and their youth club after we fathomed Debbie’s directions (there was no right turn that’s all I will say). The concept of youth club is different from the UK – there was no table tennis, darts, pool, music etc - it was a discussion forum. There were 18 teenagers from 13 – 18 (14 boys & 4 girls) and the topic was the importance of HIV/Aids testing.
The majority of the discussion was in Zulu BUT it was obvious for me (alan) who speaks no Zulu that there was input from most of the individuals, there was some good banter, a lot of questions and answers AND some very serious moments – I found it really positive for these youngsters to have a youth leader who is guiding them through such a difficult topic which has impacted either directly or indirectly on all of them.
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