Home Visits
Many families are not able even to put food on the table. Tuesdays and Thursdays are the official working days agreed upon by the volunteer team although most volunteers work right through the week. On entering a household where someone is sick the first step is to identify the primary care giver. The volunteer will offer on going advice and assistance to the primary care giver. If basic medical supplies are required the volunteer will administer these. Where people are dying the volunteers talk to family members about taking care of the children who will be left behind. Delicate and often quite difficult counselling with the dying person is needed too.
Practical matters will also need to be addressed, such as who the best foster parent would be and whether any Birth Certificates and Identity Documents are available so that one can apply for Foster Care Grants. More often than not, no papers exist and the fathers are 'unknown' or 'lost'. This requires a lot of hard work on the volunteers' behalf; following up with the Traditional Leaders, Home Affairs, School Principals, and even Ixopo clinic for clinic cards and the Mission for Baptism Certificates. It is a long and tedious process getting all the documentation in order. The same paperwork is undertaken when the volunteers identify and assist people with Old Age Pensions, Care Dependency and Disability Grants. This is the main thrust of Woza Moya's poverty alleviation programme at the moment.
Poverty is another big challenge facing the volunteers on their home visits. Many people are hungry and having to beg from their neighbours for food, who are not much better off than themselves. Many children who are not in school and who should be, have been identified in these households. Families are unable to pay the school fees and even more so the school uniforms. Please see How you can help section for more information on this.
The volunteers also have Report Sheets that are filled in for every visit they do.
Monthly Report Group Meetings
Jane and Benedicta dispense basic medical supplies
Once a month the volunteers meet with Jane and Sue in small groups of 4 people at a time, to discuss the home visits. Each group meets for about 4 hours over a 2 day period. This will be extended to 3 days once the new volunteers are deployed. Jane reads through all the Report Sheets and makes a random selection from each volunteer's file, to do follow up spot check visit. Sue discusses the more serious cases that have arisen in the past month and how the work is progressing on the ground. There is always a lot of follow up that is required after these meetings; whether it be with the Social Welfare offices, Home Affairs, Hospitals, the clinic, Traditional leaders, the schools or with particular families or individuals.
At these monthly meetings medical supplies are replenished. Each volunteer has been equipped with a Home Based Care kit especially geared towards the treatment of infections arising as a result of HIV/AIDS and also for First Aid. Benedicta Ndlovu, the Senoir volunteer, is in charge of keeping a record of medical supplies used and taken. Report Sheets and medical supplies administered must correlate with these records.
Also once a month the poorest families in the community are identified for 2nd hand clothing. This usually consists of the elderly with orphaned grandchildren. These families are visited by Jane and Sue who give them a slip of paper indicating all the details of the recipient families and the collection date for their clothing.