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It is my greatest privilege to have found myself in a position to update each donor and individuals we have in the organization about our progress thus far in each of our programs we were able to execute this year. It has been such a hard year due to COVID-19 but we continue to push and cater to our communities in such times were we are needed the most. It is true we couldn’t have done half of the things without each donor and individual that dedicated their time, love and money to helping the communities of Masoyi Home Based Care.
The organization is thankful for the love and support we receive. May the Almighty God continue too bless each and every person who has dedicated their resources into the organization. I would love to wish each and every one a happy new year. We are looking forward to continuing our relationship because without you the organization would not be able to help our community. Thank you.
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We still continue with the daily or weekly home visits to their homes on a rather regular basis to meet the children’s emotional, psychosocial and spiritual needs. The program of buying food still plays an important part in the beneficiaries lives and it helps enable them to go to bed with a full stomach and also enables them to wake up in the morning and look forward to a better and brighter day ahead.
The buying food program has seen many families become happy and positive because their children are benefiting from it. I am responsible for ensuring that all families are visited and also all their needs are met. I have seen a great change in some of the families, the children in particular have become very positive towards life and their self-esteem has grown.
The families that benefit from the program of buying food for them are the same families that are currently benefiting from the Masoyi orphans program. Our aim is to change the situation of poverty in the lives of orphaned and vulnerable children in the community. All families are currently coping well. Some of our children got their reports and they did well - Lebo, Happiness, Hazel, Mbalenhle, Tsepiso, and Ncobile. Unfortunately Eulender and Loudrick did not do well and I was very sad when they told me that they failed again. The thing that worries me the most is that they are getting older but doing lower grades and the school can kick them out before they finish their grade twelve. The young children passed their grades and they are currently enjoying their summer holidays.
During the calendar year of 2020 Masoyi Home Based Care organization has distributed a total number of 240 food parcels to 240 orphan and vulnerable families around the Masoyi communities on its OVC food parcel program. In each month from January to December, including the national lockdown period, 20 orphan and vulnerable children families received a food parcel which equals to the 240 for the period of 12 months.
Picture on the right, is of some of our orphan and vulnerable children receiving their food parcels.
We have three afternoon lunchtime feeding centres which provide a lunchtime meal to orphan and vulnerable children - Khayalethu 2 Centre situated at Mahushu, Khayalethu 3 Centre which is situated in Swalala and Phola centre. The three centres between the period of January to March and September to December 2020 have provided lunchtime meals to 1055 OVC beneficiaries. The lunchtime feeding centres were not operating during the national lockdown period between April and August as we wanted to avoid many OVC beneficiaries being in contact.
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The house building program seeks to identify and address the housing needs of the Masoyi orphan and vulnerable children from around the Masoyi communities. The housing program builds and repairs houses of the OVC beneficiaries upon need assessment and approval from the Masoyi Home Based Care care givers.
During the calendar year of 2020 the house building program completed the building and furnishing of a four room house and toilet for our OVC beneficiaries in the Masoyi community of Legogothe.
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The OVC's Christmas party is organized to have the children under one roof to celebrate, receive gifts, eat cake and to get words of encouragement. This year the Christmas party was organized on the 12th of December and we had 150 orphan and vulnerable children attending the party.
We had two of our OVC children directing the program, a young pastor who led us with prayer, one of our former OVC children who is now a teacher giving words of encouragement, a peer educator of our youth peer education program and a representative from Kesho, the organization that helped in sponsoring our OVC with gifts, also giving the children words of encouragement. We also hired a bouncy castle.
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The youth peer education program is a school based peer education which reaches more than 5,000 young people in the four schools where it’s being implemented. The peer education is implemented in four secondary schools of Sakhile, Mshadza, Bhekiswako and Siphumelele.
The peer education program has not been in full swing since the beginning of the national lockdown period. However the five facilitators who are implementing the program in the schools have been working in supporting the schools in fighting the coronavirus by ensuring all learners and educators are sanitized and have their temperatures checked before entering the school gates every day. They also make sure learners maintain social distancing whilst in school during their break period.
Visiting and caring for sick people in the community, Patient Home Based Care is the ‘mother’ of all the programs at MHBCP because this was the main reason MHBC came into existence. The program focuses on the following activities:
• Home visits - to check patient’s medication; encourage patients to adhere to the medication; follow-up and counselling; referrals to relevant stakeholders; giving patients emotional, physical and spiritual support.
• HCT (HIV Counselling and Testing) – door-to-door campaigns with information on HIV and TB; testing for HIV, and TB screening; referrals to primary health centres for those who have tested HIV positive, or have signs and symptoms of TB.
• I-ACT (Integrated Access to Care and Treatment)
Stories: We visited a male patient who is on both HIV and TB treatment. He is living alone as both his parents passed away and other family members have abandoned him. The patient is unemployed, living in a two room house which is not in good condition. As the patient is not working he depends on his neighbours to give him food to eat so he can take his medication. When we visited him we gave him a food parcel and also we prayed for him.
We visited another male patient who is 37 years old. The patient lives with his wife and two children in their two room shack. He is on ARV treatment and has abdominal cancer. The patient is not working and he depends on the child social grant which his children are receiving and the odd jobs which his wife is doing around the community to buy food and to have transport money for his monthly hospital check-ups for abdominal cancer and sores on his body.
We taught the patient how to properly clean his wounds and the importance of hygiene. We also gave him a food parcel as they are struggling to get food to eat.
Challenges: Support groups were a bit of a challenge due to COVID-19 because of the regulations that were put in place but we resorted to only hosting the support groups in smaller numbers so we could follow the social distancing regulations.
Khayalethu 3 Centre specializes in youth development skills and an afterschool program. The Youth Skills Development Centre (K3) grew out of the need for continuity of care and support for our young people as they were discharged from the OVC program, and then other potential beneficiaries in the community. K3 provides vocational training and a platform for youth to discover and develop their talents, having completed or failed matric or other further studies. It works to build self-esteem and help people to have a vision for their future. It serves about 50 youth at present.
The centre was established to train youth in relevant practical skills that will provide employment opportunities and allow them to open small businesses. Some of the programs are:
· Sewing
· Beading
· Carpentry
· Computer Training (in partnership with the Good Work Foundation, the K3 YSDC offers an internationally recognised computer qualification. Students study for six months for their ICDL (International Computer Driver’s License), comprising 7 modules: Basic Concepts of IT; Using a Computer and Managing files; Word processing; Spread sheet; Database; Presentation.
Over the past year the sewing team was able to obtain new qualifications and experience in skills they lacked. The organisation made it a point that they improve on skill development and are able to produce good quality products. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic the sewing team had a lot of orders for sewing face masks for organisations such as Kruger National Park and local businesses.
The computer lab was able to produce at least 7 learners who now have sufficient computer skills to get good quality jobs although it was unfortunate that during the COVID-19 pandemic classes had to be cancelled because of health concerns. The students were able to go back to class as we moved to level 4 of lockdown and have recently finished writing examinations.
There are four vegetable gardens strategically located in the Masoyi community, including the two care centres. These gardens are tended by primary caregivers or community members on a daily basis. It is very clear that the gardens are flourishing and provide healthy, fresh products. The primary caregivers express great pride in maintaining the gardens and showing the products that the gardens yield. The products are used for the children’s meals, and primary caregivers have the opportunity to take some products for themselves.
The gardens are used to supplement the children’s diets and increase their food stability. This is so important because many children have little or no food at their homes. The gardens provide children with some of the vitamins they might not otherwise get since they do not have money to buy such nutritious food. The vegetables grown in these gardens (lettuce, cabbage, green peppers, tomatoes, green onions) are used in the kitchens at the care centres, and also distributed to the children’s houses.
The Wellness Wagon Mobile Clinic's main objective is to strengthen healthcare service delivery to children in remote areas. The program aims to compliment the Department of Health’s efforts to address the misdistribution of healthcare services within the South African health system. Staffed by a professional nurse, Assistance Nurse/Lay Councillor and a driver, the Wellness Wagon offers primary health care services in Ehlanzeni District. Services offered to the community are HIV testing, TB Screening, monitoring Road to Health cards (immunisation status and child development), health education, general health screening, antenatal care service, and primary health care.
Due to COVID-19 in March we went into full national lockdown and we unfortunately had to close all our centers because we were very concerned about the wellbeing of our children. When we reached level 1 we opened for those who had to move grades and start primary school and they graduated in December. Our plan is to open when schools reopen for 2021.
We have a challenge with one of our orphan children that dropped out of school and went to Pretoria looking for a job. “He run away from home because his uncle and I want him to register at TVET College because he didn't pass matric. He does not want to come back. We are worried about him because without an education you are nothing and especially if you do not have matric no doors will open for you”.
And also one orphaned child was sick. The doctors found that he has an ulcer problem and referred him to the fospital so that they can treat the ulcer but he refuses to go.