Other Projects We Support

When we arrived at the Masizame Children’s Shelter, I could feel the positive energy the moment I stepped through the gates. Rosalie, the founder and head of Masizame, was a shining light in the midst of this poverty stricken community. We sat and talked with various staff members and observed the way the center was run. The main thing that draws me to the Masizame Center is the love that permeates throughout the entire structure. They are not only providing solutions to the problems in their community, they are creating programs to prevent the problems from arising. Their focus is empowerment of the children, as well as adults in their community. They recognize the struggles that these people are dealing with on a daily basis and help to provide methods to overcome these struggles in a positive way. It is an incredible organization and I am so thankful that we found them. It is great to see people who truly dedicate themselves to bettering the lives of others.

I am very cautious about where Restore Humanity lends it support because of my previous experience. When I volunteered in 2005, I spent my days at a children’s shelter that had no love or support for the children and it was devastating. It was such a relief to find a shelter that truly cares for traumatized children in every way possible.

Kimberly and I went and helped in their Prevention Center that provides the free Montessori day care for the children of the township. They go everyday to pick up children all over the township and fill their days with love and much needed structure. I was a Montessori teacher before starting Restore Humanity and they are doing an excellent job at the Masizame Prevention Center of giving those under-privileged children some essential education. If you choose to donate to the Masizame Children’s Shelter, the money will go directly to them to be used to provide food, clothing, shelter, education, trauma care, medical care, and love to many children in need.

Summary

he Masizame Children’s Shelter was started with a focus on the street child, but they have expanded their vision to reach the high-risk child through offering preventative and outreach services. They work very closely with all other role players in the children’s lives, insisting that they have a role to play in the planned care of these children. To achieve this they hold regular Role Players Meetings where everyone commits to the part they have to play. For example community organizations such as Youth Future Data have agreed to change their set life skills programs to include these children; for the schools to have more patience with these challenging children and to link up with the staff at Masizame in case of problems and be trained by Masizame in behavior management rather than to allow the children to become early drop-outs.

With this expanded vision, through experience and a close relationship with the schools, the staff at Masizame has found that the street child fails out of the school system in Grades 1, 2, and 3 largely because they never received any type of pre-school education. The social circumstances of their homes are extremely bad. In response to this the Masizame staff have started to offer a free Pre-School Education together with feeding, clothing, medical programs, etc. In conjunction with the Educare Program they also train mothers in managing crisis cases informally to hand it over to professionals. These mothers also received Montessori Training so that they can help with the Educare Program. In life skills camps they assist parents to better understand and cope with their children in their uplifted state after going through Masizame’s programs.

Through various fund-raising (in South Africa) and community presentations the Masizame staff aims to educate the community and raise public awareness about the high risk and street children. In assisting the community and all role players to achieve a better understanding of these special children the staff at Masizame can truly and happily say that there are not any hardened street children in the center of the town of Plettenberg Bay. That is quite a feat.

Their History

Masizame is a Xhosa word meaning “Let Us Try!” It is exactly the attitude a group of local business women motivated to do something about the phenomenon of the street children in the greater Plettenberg Bay area in 1991. A year later the Masizame Street Children’s Project was registered with the Dept. of Social Services in South Africa. The project offers the child a constant alternative to the destructive environment of an unbearable home-life. Sadly, their home-life typically includes; alcoholic parents, poverty, physical and mental abuse and the child’s inability to cope with step-parents, single or divorced parents. The project adopts an eternal open door policy and aims to restore self-dignity through equipping the child with life skills, self reliance and coping mechanisms. Through constant communication and meaningful intervention, they seek to restore meaningful contact with the family and community. As well as establish support within their community of origin.

Masizame Today

Over the past sixteen years, they have evolved according to the needs of the children and reality of the challenges that they face on a daily basis. Masizame continues to be recognized as one of Plettenberg Bay’s success stories in terms of NGO’s. A wonderful positive team spirit still exists at Masizame, and this would not be possible without the vision, devotion, and ongoing commitment of their skilled staff, headed up by Rosalie Classens and the support of our committee, which is made up of volunteers from a varied cross section of the local population. The sight of 90 plus little ones, bright eyed and smiling, as they gleefully leap from the Masizame truck every morning and running into the Masizame Prevention Educare Preschool is truly a sight to behold. The children expect absolutely nothing and they are joyfully thankful for everything. In a simple way they have touched the lived of hundreds of children in the Greater Plettenberg Bay. These vulnerable little souls did not choose their circumstances and are facing some of life’s most diabolical adversities on a daily basis.

Startling Stats

A report released in 2005 by the Nelson Mandela Foundation charity organization and the Human Sciences Research Council, describes how children in rural schools struggle to cope with harsh living conditions brought about by poverty and AIDS.

65% of Children struggle on their own. “One question in the survey asked children if anyone assists them with homework and if so, why not? A striking 65% of children interviewed reported that no one in the house was sufficiently educated to do so,” the report said. Nearly two thirds of children in rural South Africa do not have parents educated enough to help them with homework. It sketches a bleak picture of children forced to deal with the many demands that often result in a high dropout rate or too many absents in school.

57% Children affected by HIV/AIDS: Children also had to cope with problems arising from parents suffering from the HIV epidemic, and that “ill-health” among family members was cited by 57% of parents and guardians as reasons for children missing school.

Masizame is structured in three distinct centers that provide the following vital community services for vulnerable boys and girls, many of whom are affected and infected by HIV/AIDS. These three projects operate in a synergist manner and we work with an average of 250 children and youth from the community. Their problems are mostly caused by poverty, lack of safe housing, unemployment, crime, family instability, alcohol and drug abuse, violence, and lack of proper municipality facilities. Most of the children are traumatized and these scars take years to heal.

Masizame’s Three Centers

The Masizame Prevention Program Educare Center caters for 100 children on a daily basis under the age of six. It has been established for those children who have no proper supervision, no adequate food and water, no adequate shelter, or medical care. 60% of the vulnerable and high-risk children are related to the previous hardened so-called “street children,” 20% are vulnerable made by HIV/AIDS, 18% deal with neglect and abuse and are in alternative care, 2% are mentally challenged.
The Masizame Children’s Shelter is for those children who want to make a change in their lifestyle and they live in the shelter They attend school and they do struggle, but the staff at Masizame gives them the necessary support 24 hours a day. The shelter had fifty children staying there for the past year (average of 28 children daily). Three of them are HIV positive and are on the necessary treatment. They are in the hospital on and off. Two of these children have lost their mothers to the disease and their fathers are on treatment. More children become sick and come straight from the hospital to the Shelter. The staff at Masizame is currently using their office as an area for the sick children because they don’t have adequate space. They are also rendering community services to forty children who are at risk, but are still with their families. The Child and Youth Care Workers at Masizame constantly monitor them.
The Masizame Youth Center is for the vulnerable youth. These wounded youth believe that the world is a hostile place, so they behave in a way that triggers hostility in others. When they get a familiar hostile response, their beliefs are confirmed. 18 of these youth have graduated from the Youth Center and are well-respected members in the community. 21 of the youth are still in need of guidance and support. The Masizame staff supports them and gives them the necessary after care. The Youth Center’s main focuses are Skill Training and Job Training in partnership with other role players. Since, most of these youth either have a primary education or none at all, but are now too old to go back to school. The Youth Center also provides After School Care and Safe Haven for an average of 40 Primary and High School Learners with no proper supervision at home.

BACK TO TOP

When I volunteered in 2005 I experienced so much corruption, from embezzlement to a children’s shelter neglecting children. The problems are overwhelming as it is and when the organizations that are claiming to help these problems are exploiting the situation for their benefit it is truly devastating. At times I felt like there was no hope. However, I began volunteering with Hospice in Knysna and I started to see that there truly are people dedicated to remedying some of the problems and the light of hope began to creep back in.

A Hospice sister in Knysna named Rhona was and still is truly an inspiration. She is someone who helps so many people and is so humble. You will never hear from her all of the good work she does, she doesn’t want recognition, she just helps out of the goodness of her heart. I came to realize as time went by that the entire staff at Knysna Hospice was the same way, people truly dedicated to helping others.

Every week Rhona would take me with her on her rounds. Each Hospice sister has patients throughout the community that they visit each week to check on them and find out what they need. Patients also have a home-based care worker that is available to them at any time. All of her patients lived in the various townships of Knysna. A “township” area is an impoverished area that the black people of South Africa were forced to move into during the Apartheid system. Many of her patients are living without electricity and running water and are dying of AIDS, TB or both. Hospice provides free healthcare and helps weekly with basic living necessities. They also give love and support not only to the patients, but to their families as well.

Every Tuesday they provide a “day-care” for all of their patients. They pick the patients up from all over Knysna and bring them to the Hospice B.O.N.D. house. The patients get a hot meal and a food parcel to take home with them. Each of them gets to visit with the doctor. Many of them are bedridden and have no social interaction at all, so during this time they get to visit and do various activities with other patients. It is a wonderful program, I loved being able to help serve food, take care of the babies, and visit with the patients each week. Holding a baby in my arms that is dying of AIDS definitely changed me forever. All of the death and pain that the staff at Hospice sees, they handle with pure love and grace, I learned so much from them.

Rhona also started the HIV support group for children that Restore Humanity is helping as well. She truly cares for these children and that is my only comfort when I think about their suffering. I know that Hospice is there looking out for all of these wonderful people that have touched the depths of my heart. Hospice is an amazing organization and I am honored to have meet them and be able to work with them. If you chose to donate to Hospice you will be helping this entire community in many different ways.

Introduction and Background

Traditionally Hospice cares for people in the final stages of an illness that no longer respond to curative treatment. The philosophy is that the dying are still living and deserve to both live and die with dignity. From inception until the late nineties, more that 90% of referrals were advanced malignancies. However, HIV/AIDS has radically changed both the scale and the nature of the challenge Hospice is faced with in the new millennium.

In 1996 Hospice commenced in a room of a cottage manned by volunteers one day a week. To this day volunteers are the backbone of this organization.
In 1990 B.O.N.D. was donated and a company not for gain, registered in terms of Section 21 of the Companies’ Act was established. In the same year a Board of Directors was elected and a Daycare program started at B.O.N.D. House.
In 2002 Knysna Hospice received accreditation and became an official ICHC (Integrated Community Based Home Care) site.
In 2006 we received full COHSASA accreditation. Since implementing ICHC 4 years ago the service has grown from 35 to 320 patients and from 8 staff to 38 staff necessitating appointment of our first fulltime Palliative Doctor/CEO.

As a NPO the mission of this Hospice is to, without discrimination, serve the community and its surroundings by providing first class holistic home based care to the terminally ill, especially those suffering from AIDS, and their families, prior to and during the bereavement period. It is also committed to the implementation of training and projects to enhance the ICHC program. This includes development of care for staff/volunteers, the mentoring of other health workers, networking collaborating with and building capacity with other relevant organizations.

Analysis of the Situation

South Africa is considered to have one of the fastest growing rates of HIV in the world with approximately 50,000 people affected every month. It is estimated that 6 million South Africans are infected and almost 1 million orphans under the age of 15 years whose mothers have died of AIDS.

The area we serve covers 1060 square kilometers and includes the towns of Sedgefield, Knysna, and eastwards to Harkerville bordering Plettenberg Bay with all the inland settlements such as Karatara, Barrington, Buffelsnek, Rheenendal up to the border of the Karoo.

Due to continued influx of non-resident people from other provinces seeking medical care, especially the Eastern Cape, it is difficult to provide exact numbers of those infected in this area. Currently the MTCT (Mother To Child Transmission) statistics indicate that the Garden Route area has the highest prevalence in the Western Cape at 21% against a 15.7% Cape provincial average. Research undertaken by Knysna Municipal Clinics and private laboratories from early 2000- January 2007 show that of the persons who have come forward for voluntary testing, over 3,240 have tested HIV+.

Compounding the enormity of the increasing prevalence of AIDS is severe poverty. The circle of individual pain and suffering on every dimension (physical, economic, emotional, spiritual, social) is vicious. Not only is the infrastructure of government welfare services inadequate to deal with these issues, but the hospitals and clinics are overwhelmed and can barely cope with increasing loads due to severe cutbacks in resources and staff.

Our response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic is to effectively care for and reach more AIDS patients and their families in our community by expanding and enhancing the ICHC home-based care model. Growth in numbers of people needing this service has grown to the extent that is has been necessary to employ the services of a fulltime palliative doctor.

There is a dire need for quality, professionally supervised, collaborative palliative Hospice home-based care to be taken beyond the borders of the area we serve. This Hospice has been identified as a key resource center and mentor hospice to play a key role in facilitating development of other organizations offering home-based care in the Southern Cape.

Aims and Objectives of the Organization

Enable seriously ill patients to have equal access to a continuum of quality care.
Ensure bedridden patients receive good management of opportunistic infections and quality pain/symptom control.
Link quality home care to prevention by using powerful teaching methods in the home to educate patient and family regarding HIV/AIDS and thus reduce the incidence.
Empower individuals, their families and primary care workers with basic home nursing skills and accurate knowledge regarding HIV/AIDS.
Enhance the life quality of patients and to enable ‘dying with dignity.
Provide continuum of holistic care including bereavement support and access to social services.
Provide emergency food relief, clothing and bedding where necessary.
Continuously identify infected and affected children. Facilitate placement of these orphans and vulnerable children.