The Umtwalume area is typically beautiful with rolling hills of grass or sugarcane dotted with round huts and acacia trees. It is amidst this beauty that apartheid, poverty, and now AIDS have caused suffering and dislocation. The unemployment rate is well above 50 percent, leaving many extended family members and neighbors dependent on single breadwinners. There are few parents left, with 40.1 percent of pregnant women in this province being HIV positive. Many of the children in the Thanda After-School Project live with their grandparents now.
The Thanda After-School Project teachers get to know their students very well through household surveys, one on one talks, and feedback from their school teachers. The Thanda ASP teachers are able to identity problems in the household (such as food insecurity, illness, abuse, lack of government grants) as well as individual problems (illness, emotional damage, eyesight problems). Our experienced community coordinator makes frequent home visits to their families to further investigate the issues and talk with the family members about general issues of health, safety, and care. Thanda ASP helps these families on a discretionary basis and tries to get to the root of the problem (unemployment, lack of official documents). We work together with the families to find long-term solutions that are both sustainable and replicable.
June 9, 2009
Since 2008 the Thanda Community Assistance Program has been busy with the health of our Thanda students. We started this year by visiting the homes of students to assess their home situations and to meet their families. The Community Assistance Coordinator is helping families get the resources and information they need regarding health issues. She helps families apply for grants and birth certificates and sometimes accompanies them to the social welfare office or clinic. The Community Assistance Coordinator often offers psychological support and counselling to students and families who are dealing with HIV and other illnesses. If anybody has a minor injury or headache while at Thanda we send them straight to Delisile to mend. She also educates the students in our Youth and High School Programmes in basic hygiene, STIs, HIV/AIDS and TB.
As part of community assistance, Delisile also distributes food and clothing to families who have been struck by disaster or families who do not have basic necessities such as food or school uniforms. Many families in our community were completely devastated by floods last June and the Thanda Community Assistance Coordinator made sure families received donated clothing, blankets, sheets and towels. She also communicates with local traditional structures and networks with other local NGOs.
- Delisile, Community Assistance Coordinator
"Thanda helped our community by building houses for those houses were damaged by the storm last year. People now support Thanda by sending their children to Thanda to get better education". – Njabulo Khomo
"Thanda helped our community, because in our community, our generation we don’t use drugs no more coz we study"- Nduduzo Skhachane
"They help us to learn about things that we don’t know about or they help us not to go around in the street afterschool".- Nomazamo Skhakhane
“Thanda helps our community get opportunities” – Nonkululeko Cele
|
)
)
)
)
