Mandy's Team

Last night our good friend Amanda left us to return to the USA. We have loved having her with us at Refilwe over the past six months and were very sad to see her go. Having a close friend with us has made our experiences here in South Africa much richer as we experienced things together and were able to debrief, laugh and cry in the context of our long friendship.

Amanda has spent the past seven months working closely with Refilwe’s Home Based Care  (HBC) Team, assisting in administrating and organising their work as they go out into the local informal settlements each week. As I have mentioned before, these settlements are often sites of poverty, malnutrition and disease. Many of the HBC workers come from the communities in which they work, a benefit for Refilwe in terms of accessing community networks and authenticity within them.

The Team as a whole is separated into six smaller teams, each of which is assigned to a specific settlement. The teams’ main role is to become aware of the needs within their settlement and to take action to meet them. They do this in one of three ways:

They conduct home visits to members of the community, attending their homes and assessing if there is any way in which Refilwe can assist. The team may then refer them to several different services available at Refilwe: if they need clothing, they are referred to the clothing donation service, if they need food they are put on a list to receive a monthly food parcel. If the need is for counseling they are referred to Refilwe’s social workers; if the need is for young children to be assessed and helped, they are referred to Refilwes Orphaned and Vulnerable Children’s workers. If their needs are health related, the teams find ways in which to assist such as providing basic health care and/or organising transport to clinics.

They also conduct health education sessions for communities on a range of topics including nutrition, basic hygiene, HIV/AIDS and other STIs. These education sessions are usually held within the communities with an open invitation for anybody in the area to attend. Preparing for and presenting these sessions provides the HBC team with training and new skills, which is a dual goal of the program.

The third way the HBC team works in the communities is through Voluntary Counseling and Testing, the formalized HIV/AIDS counseling and testing program in SA. This program is specifically targeted for reaching as many individuals as possible, with the team having undergone specific training to be able to work in the program. This is a topic which requires more space and time than I have left tonight, so you can expect a more detailed blog about the effects of this disease and its treatment/prevention very soon!

The HBC team is Refilwe's main and most regular arm into the communities around us. They are confronted daily by the reality of the ways in which poverty and social injustices wreak havoc on peoples' lives. Mandy, over the past 7 months, was able to oversee, encourage and work alongside the team- what an amazing woman!