What a great few months … so much seems to have happened since the last newsletter and one of the most amazing things for me is that we now have a truly fabulous team of volunteers who are working really hard on their respective projects and really supporting each other in the work that we do every day at Isibani.

 

We hope that you will enjoy reading this newsletter which has been split into 3 sections

 

1. The Team .. who has come and who has gone !

2. Our Projects .. an update on how our projects are progressing

3. News from our volunteers ..

 

1. The Team

We were joined at the beginning of June by Sandile who we have known for a while as he is one of our physiotherapy patients. He has taken over the running of the front desk which involves referring clients to other members of the team, filling in client intake forms and keeping us all organized and making sure that everyone knows what they are doing on busy days like Matthew 25 and special needs days.

 

We said goodbye to Rodrick a couple of weeks ago; he has taken six months out to go to Worcester in Cape Town to undertake a DTS (discipleship training scheme) with YWAM (Youth with a mission). Whilst it was sad to see him go and he is sorely missed at the centre we are all thrilled that he is having such a wonderful time on his DTS. He met up with Christine (former Isibani volunteer) who is doing the outreach section of her DTS in Worcester so was immediately made to feel at home there.

 

We have recently been joined by a new volunteer, Mzi, a young man from Khetani who is interested in becoming a HIV counselor and will also help us to raise awareness within the community of the different services Isibani has to offer. We are hoping he will also help us out with home visits, he is extremely personable and our clients love him already!

 

2. Our Projects

 

HIV Testing and Counselling

Isibani finally (after nearly 2 years of meetings and paperwork) received approval to do HIV testing and counseling on site in Winterton. This is a huge achievement and Sindy and Nicola (our trained counselors) now have a regular intake of clients. We are also running the adherence training programme which all patients attend before they can start on their HIV medication. Having a testing and counseling site in Winterton is fantastic for the local people as previously they would have needed to travel to Emmaus hospital and lots of people would be unable to afford the taxi fare or the time off work so would avoid being tested.

 

Having got the go ahead to do testing we are already offering this as a mobile service and are encouraging local farmers and businesses to allow us to present to their staff on site at work. The first of these mobile workshops was an incredible success with around 30 staff attending, they first watched an educational dvd about the virus and then we had time for a question and answer session. We were all amazed by how many questions the staff had and how at ease they were during the session.

 

Once Sindy and Nicola had finished answering their questions we asked if anyone would like to be tested … silence … then one lady said that she would and then another and another. In the end we tested 25 people which was a better result that we could ever have hoped for.

 

Initially the men were too scared so all left and then one by one they drifted back and chatted to Mzi and then four of them actually chose to be tested too. It was a very busy day for everyone especially Nicola and Sindy who worked incredibly hard throughout.

 

Cerebral Palsy Groups

We are lucky enough to have a lady called Selena who now volunteers with us once a month to run a cerebral palsy support and treatment group. Patients are split into one of two groups dependent on their age, each session takes about an hour and after only a couple of months everyone is incredibly at ease with each another and the sessions are filled with laughter and smiling faces. We are very thankful to Selena for enabling us to offer this amazing service.

 

Occupational Therapy

Ruth, the OT from a nearby NGO, Eka Jesu, has now moved into one of our rooms so we have an OT onsite which is very useful. She primarily assesses children and we are able to work alongside her to ensure children attend their follow up appointments with speech therapy, audiology and physiotherapy.

 

Physiotherapy

We were sorry to lose Jana, our volunteer physio, who has now moved out of the area but Sindy has now taken over Jana’s long term patients. Having worked with Jana over a few months Sindy has learnt enough to be able to continue the regular exercises that these patients need. As well as the physical need we have found that the physio patients get a lot socially from the sessions and are always reluctant to miss a week.

 

Kitchen

Donations continue to arrive on an adhoc basis and Hlo is always on hand to process whatever we receive into something delightful. We had what only can be described as a mountain of butternuts for a while followed by gallons of delicious butternut soup which is used by the Khetani Sunday school, on Matthew 25 days and for other outreach programmes.

 

We are delighted to have a local supermarket in the Berg also supporting us and bringing us any products about to expire, these are either processed on the day or given out to sick clients we are working with in the community.

 

The Garden

This season has been our first real attempt at the garden and it is looking amazing, we have more spinach that you would believe as well as cabbages, lettuce, cauliflower, beetroot and peas. Some of the food will be processed in our kitchen whilst some will be handed out to sick patients in the community who are in desperate need of a nutritious diet.

 

Adult Literacy

Nicola’s literacy classes are going well. Numbers were slow to start with but she spent sometime in the location letting people know classes were now available and she now has around 20 students in one of her groups.

 

The classes are primarily for those who are able to speak Zulu but wish to learn English. All the students so far seem very dedicated and after just a few week are able to put together sentences in Zulu.

 

All the students seem to really enjoy the classes and they come out with huge smiles on their faces.

 

 

Baby Day Care

We continue to help out with the baby day care facility in Khetani and have recently moved premises and now share the preschool site.

 

The babies are very happy with their new facility and are loving their new sandpit. The facility is to enable working mums to have access to affordable child care during the day and also for vulnerable children to spend their day in a safe environment where they can be fed and looked after.

 

We are hoping to extend the scope of the facility now we have more space available and perhaps bring in babies / children with special needs partly to offer a respite to their carers but also to offer them more stimulation and to help them to develop physically.

 

The Website

Two English volunteers, Graham and Alison (aka Bong), stayed with us for a month or so and did an incredible job in sorting out our computers and network issues as well as working on our brand new website which is nearly ready to go.

 

 

 

3. News from the Volunteers

 

Story by Nicola

 

My name is Jack I live in Khetani.

 

After 2 months of starting my adult literacy classes to students that could not understand or speak a word in English, Jack and the rest of my class could put a whole sentence together, stand in front of the classroom and speak confidently in English. that was one of my proudest moments and it has given me the joy to carry on teaching.

 

 

 

By Sindy

 

There was a client who was very sick and her son too. We took them to hospital where they tested positive and than started medicines; we took them to centre as they have no-one to help at the house they were renting. The support they got helped them to pick up and they went back to the community to restart their life. The lady got sick again because of defaulting with her medication, she died. I was so sad but happy because she had some people who were supporting her during her last days.

 

 

 

Story by Sylevester

 

At one day I was at Isibani when Anne and Cameron came with someone who speak only sotho, he was very sick, and he had a problem with his feets; they where very sore he said. And when I looked at him, I saw that this guy has more then five years without having a bath, And we help him bath with Isibani people, we bath him an gave him some new clothing to wear. And he got taken to hospital, after he came back from the hospital he was a normal human being.

 

And now he got a job; he is working for himself.

 

 

 

Story by Hlo

 

It’s amazing how god works through the Isibani members to help those who need help. They change my life too, the way I saw the world didn’t care for anyone. But now I do for what I see in the community. Come see it yourself.

 

 

Local is Lekker by Anne

 

Winterton now has its own local taxi service! The car has seen better days and the driver himself is eccentric to say the least but all credit to him for seizing a business opportunity and giving it a go.

 

Often Sofi and I struggled to have the time twice each week to pick up and drop off our physio patients so we decided we would support this small business and engage him to do this for us. Initially all went well, as well as things ever go that is, the driver operates on African time (ie always arrives late) and drives African style (ie at the speed of light) but other than that.

 

One day we asked him to pick up our patient called Mavis, he didn’t remember her very well so we reminded him it was the lady who has the leg calipers. Off he went. When he returned to the centre he did have a lady with leg calipers but not Mavis. He had found a lady walking down the street with calipers and had practically bundled her into the car. She had no idea what was going on or where she was going, she thought she was been kidnapped !!

 

He brought her to the centre and she was then quite happy to have a cup of tea and a rather unexpected physio session !!

 

After the session, it was time for the patients to go home but we now had our extra patient so there wasn’t so much room in the car. One of the patients (in the front seat) had unfortunately had an incident in the bathroom so was a little smelly … that’s when I new things were off to an interesting start.

 

When it came time to squeeze in our new patient (4’0’’ with leg calipers) .. she wouldn’t fit. There wasn’t enough room for her to swing her legs round to get them in the footwell of the back seats so as I looked on in disbelief she calmly lifted her legs up and put one either side of the headrest of the drivers seat.

 

I don’t think I have laughed so much in a very long time. It was certainly an interesting day for her… first a suspected kidnapping, an unexpected physio session then a journey home with legs in the air in car smelling like a sewer ! Nobody can ever say life at Isibani is boring !!