December 2012

Home Based Care Training

CHILDREN'S VILLAGE

On December 20^th, 2012, Shukuru, a 9 year old HIV positive boy, passed away from complications stemming from Tuberculosis. He didn’t have to. His Mother had stopped taking HIV medication, and had stopped her son from taking medication as well. Shukuru’s Mother passed away almost exactly one month before Shukuru on November 22^nd, and Shukuru joined the family at Igoda Children’s Village. Though he started on medication immediately after arriving here- treatment was too late.

Shukuru’s death touched the family here at the Children’s Village deeply. Although he was only with us a short time, it brings back memories of other children who’ve passed. Shukuru’s death also showed us all that there is still a ways to go with HIV education in this area- that even after the incredible strides that have been made towards access to treatment, and education about the disease, there are still hurdles to clear.

Shukuru’s funeral was a stirring scene. The entire Children’s Village, including all of the guardians, and those working on contracts in the garden and otherwise, with over 70 children all walked to the burial site which was just in Igoda village. It was a powerful image of unity as everyone was singing funeral songs, and the message to the community was clear that we are all here for the children. At the funeral Jenny Peck was asked to speak on behalf of everyone at the Children’s Village. She gave an emotional speech about how this community no longer suffers from AIDS, but suffers from silence. She asked the community to forbid this behaviour in the future. She asked how many knew that Shukuru’s medication had been stopped, and how many could have said something either to the family or village leadership. She said that all of us share the responsibility of this child’s death, and in order for us to build our community we must not be afraid of this disease. She asked why it was that everyone contributed to funerals, and not as much for the treatment of sick relatives and neighbors. Finally she pleaded with everyone to build this community together, and stop these needless deaths.

It was an emotionally draining day, and many in the community have been talking over the Children’s Village’s presence at the funeral, and in particular, Jenny’s moving speech. A few days after the funeral, members of the Seventh Day Adventist church, many of whom were present for Jenny’s speech, donated 50,000/= for the treatment of a woman with cerebral palsy who’s been staying at the Children’s Village. We are excited to see more community-based contributions like these in the New Year. As HIV treatment is now widely available, focus can be placed on prevention now, and we can now dream of stopping this disease once and for all.

COMMUNITY OUTREACH

Home Based Care

This month we completed the second Home Based Care training, and added 12 new volunteers from 6 new villages! Home Based Care Volunteers are trained to give basic first aid, health education, and HIV counseling and advice. The volunteers directly help give the community a much-needed boost in better quality of health services. Health facilities are few and far between in our area, and so these volunteers bridge this resource gap by visiting people in their homes. Too many patients can often crowd health facilities with very simple problems such as headaches, or joint pain. At the same time, many patients wait too long to seek treatment often waiting until it is too late for health professionals to care for them. The volunteers in this program are trained to help the community use the existing health resources to their fullest potential, so the Home Based Care Program helps improve services at Mdabulo Hospital for example. The Mdabulo CTC is also helped as the volunteers follow up on every patient enrolled to make sure treatment continues. Home Based Care volunteers also follow up with the Mothers in the Milk Powder Program to ensure Mothers and families are helping to prevent the transmission of HIV. By expanding to the Ihanu ward, the home based care program will help prepare whole new communities for the health challenges of future generations.

EDUCATION

Igoda Primary School Results

For the duration of 2012 Secondary School graduates who come from difficult backgrounds themselves, many of whom are orphans themselves, have been helping in the evenings to teach the children at the Igoda Children’s Village extra lessons. We were hoping this would be a win-win scenario as the extra income for the tutors would help them start their adult lives, and the extra tutoring would help the children from the Children’s Village advance in school, as many of them were starting school at a very late age. The results could hardly have been better! Igoda Primary School results came out this year, and nearly every top spot in each grade is taken up by a child from the Children’s Village. We are excited that this one project is making a difference in so many children’s lives.

November 2012

Pictured: Jenny Peck and Yusto Chumi 'embarass' Remijio (front row green sweater) by cheering emphatically over his school results!



CHILDREN’S VILLAGE

With the news of Dr. Leena Pasanen moving to Mufindi to ‘retire’ in the new year, the NGO has set out to build a clinic for the Children’s Village with funds from this years Dar es Salaam charity Goat Races event, and a fundraiser held earlier this year by friend Gord Breedyk, and Evelyn Voigt. The clinic will be a place for Dr. Leena, and other volunteer Doctors to see patients, and will give the village of Igoda a health clinic, which will be the first health facility the village has ever had. The clinic will be modest in size, but will be very important as the first line of health service for many in Igoda village were referrals to Mdabulo and other health facilities will be made from this clinic. The ground was cleared this month, and next month we will have building materials delivered so that mason workers will be ready to start foundations in the New Year.

This month saw two more children from the Children’s Village finish their primary schooling successfully. Ken Ngigwa, and Boniface Kalinga graduated this year from Igoda Primary School, and both are excited to start Secondary School next year, a privilege not every child gets to enjoy. Boniface in particular was awarded the top graduate honors this year! We are very proud of him, and we look forward to receiving the results from other students next month, as all have been studying hard this year with extra lessons every evening.

November is an important farming month in Mufindi, and the same is true for the Children’s Village. Our children learned a lot from first-hand experience this month as we prepared fields for fruit tree planting, maize, and beans. The children also helped in the gardens on weekends by helping to farm the land, and even planting seeds as well. We hope the experience the children get through farming at the Children’s Village will help them later in their lives as they learn to live on their own in the village.

 COMMUNITY OUTREACH

 Bibi’s House (Care Homes) Complex

 The Care Homes Complex is a set of three houses that has been built in the village of Igoda to be used by the village for temporary housing of disadvantaged members of their community. Originally designed for Grandmothers whose homes have fallen into ill-repair, the community has decided so far to use this complex to house single-mothers who are having difficulty getting their lives back after some difficult circumstances. Here is the story of the women in the care home complex today:

Atu Myundunga, 29, from Ludilo village has 3 children. Her husband is sick and her house is in terrible shape. Her grass roof is falling apart with gaping holes, and the walls are beginning to cave in where the rains this year (next month) will certainly knock it down. A plan has been put in place for her to have some work at Igoda Children's Village, while her children stay temporarily at the center. During these rainy months Nov-May 2013, she'll save money for window and door-frames, corrugated iron roofing, and a bit of cement so she may build her own home. Her husband can help with building of the house if he gets well, and they will both make the bricks starting in June '13. When the rains come next year, Atu will be able to move in to her new house with her family, and we will hopefully have another success story similar to the Mwagala family from Mwefu, whose children stayed at the Children’s Village for a short time until their house was re-built, and are now living happily back in their home. 

Anna Mhapa, 25, from Ilasa village has one 2-year-old boy named Koli. Anna was introduced to the NGO through the milk powder program. She was not getting HIV treatment, and the Home Based Care program educated her about the importance of getting treatment each month. Anna's child was not doing well, and was treated in Mafinga for kwashiorkor in September. The child is also HIV positive. Anna also suffers from epilepsy, but has only received medication from local healers. She had refused to take medication through the local health facilities, or through Dr. Leena. The committee is concerned about her health and how this could affect her child, or how the child will be cared for if she passes away, or cannot care for herself. She continues to have difficult falls after passing out, and has finally started two days ago on medication for epilepsy. The committee had hoped she would agree to have her child stay at the Igoda Children's Village. She has agreed, and has had a very successful stay at the Children’s Village. Anna plans to move to the Care Homes Complex next month, as she is ready to start her life on her own armed with better knowledge on how to care for her child. We're happy that there seems to be more and more local leadership, and that solutions are coming from the community for the community.

EDUCATION

African Children’s Book Boxes (AfricanBookBox.org)

Anne Pearson and Ruth James made a huge impact during their stay this year, and perhaps the most touching moment was during their one-day tour of the 6 primary schools of Mdabulo ward. With African Book Box donations, the two were able to purchase over $14,000 worth of books, and on this day a good amount of them were handed over officially to these primary schools. It was an exciting and moving day, as each school head teacher gave us a tour of the village school, and we saw first hand the struggles these teachers and students go through in the name of education. In one classroom in Ilasa village, over 170 students had one teacher for standard one. In Kidete, the entire school was run through two classrooms. Other schools were in better shape comparatively, but the teacher to student ratio was nearly always frighteningly unbalanced. We were happy to give a good picture of local schools in the area, and even more pleased to give Anne and Ruth the chance to see these books go to good people. Each set of teachers at each school immediately dived into the box of books, and examined them, and started reading. We are overjoyed to know that each school in Mdabulo now has a set of resources that will improve the quality of education from its most basic level.

October 2012

Pictured: The Stage is Set! Mwefu Primary put on a play about the story of Mwefu. We hope the play will be an annual show performed by Mwefu students, for the Mwefu community. This month really highlighted the importance of volunteers. We wanted to explain how each of our projects have benefited from the presence of volunteers. The following is a description of what has been accomplished by the NGO during the month of October 2012. CHILDREN’S VILLAGE The Felista Mpangile Playground at the Igoda Children’s Village will be a playground built in the memory of the little girl who passed away in 2010 from HIV who was from Ibwanzi village. Felista’s memory will be carried on through a playground that will be designed to give a place for children to play in a stigma free area. Felista herself was the victim of stigmatization, and a playground in a safe environment allows kids to have fun without the anxiety of being teased or bullied. This month the fence around the playground was constructed as we welcomed the third incarnation of a group of volunteers from the volunteer group Carpe Diem. The organization brings a group of volunteers to do service learning, and they helped us for just over a week with a group of projects. This trip, they helped with the playground, and other projects, and although their time is short with us, Mufindi makes a lasting impression on anyone who visits, and their time with the people of Mufindi helps, as the cultural exchange is an education in and of itself. COMMUNITY OUTREACH Home Based Care Carpe Diem also visited some homes that are enrolled in our Home Based Care program. Stacey Droll, the Peace Corps Volunteer who is extending for a third year, but with our NGO, took the volunteers on a tour of Mlevelwa village, where the Home Based Care team there took them to see many patients, and everyone shared their lives from their very different backgrounds. It was good for the people of Mlevelwa to see visitors, and also good for the Carpe Diem volunteers to see village life in a very personal way. The Home Based Care program continues to service those most in need and it has sparked an interest in community service throughout the project area. As the community fights back against this pandemic of HIV, the sense of community has returned even more, as people are more able to help their neighbor now that more are healthy. The improvement of the overall health in the area has precipitated a great deal of community development, as it appears as though great change is being affected. The Home based Care team welcomed volunteer Sigrid Shrinner as well this month, as she helped the volunteers train families with children with physical disabilities. Sigi has visited several times before, and is really making an impact not only in the villages but as well with the physically disabled at the Igoda Children’s Village. HEALTH CARE Mdabulo Care and Treatment Clinic The Care and Treatment Clinic at Mdabulo had several guests this month as Minna, Anna, and Emma, all volunteered their services at the facility. The help from doctors on the ‘CTC’ days is especially important as the extremely understaffed facility takes in well over 100 patients on the single day. Medical volunteers help lessen the burden on the staff of only one clinical officer, a nurse-midwife, lab attendant, and a few nurses. Eventually the NGO’s longer-term goal is to have a steady stream of medical volunteers to help bolster the overall health of the community by getting more health care service to the community. EDUCATION African Book Box Anne Pearson and Ruth James are here again from African Book Box for a six-week visit. Each will be completing a project at Mwefu Primary School, and Luhunga Secondary School respectively. Anne will be preparing the students of Mwefu Primary for a presentation of play next month. This year she will bringing to life the story of Mwefu Primary, and the courageous work of the community to put the school together again after a horrendous storm knocked the school down in December last year. Ruth will be working with the secondary students on their group reading of a book called ‘The Heaven Shop,’ about a Malawian family affected by HIV/AIDS. Mufindi is blessed to have these two visit each year, not only for the resources they have contributed, but also the passion, dedication, and commitment they have shown for the people of Mufindi. They both give such tremendous support to the community and the NGO, and each visit they bring such life to each of the projects.