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KZN women making headlines
Originally published in Kwana in the City (16 - 22 July 2004). Republished with kind permission from Kwana in the City.
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KwaZulu-Natal is home to three of the inspiring finalists in the Shoprite Checkers/SABC 2 Women of the Year Award. The award is a major initiative for National Women?’s Day and identifies and pays tribute to the most exceptional and achieving women in the country, whose unswerving commitment and dedication have made a tangible difference to their communities and in society as a whole.
This year, for the first time, the judges will not announce an overall winner. The premier accolade for achievement by women will honour nine winners in nine categories and these outstanding women will share the Shoprite Checkers/SABC 2 Women of the Year Award.
The three finalists from KZN who focus on Health and Social Services are:
RUTH MAOELA, Health finalist, is the HIV/AIDS co-ordinator for the Bethesda AIDS Action team, and uses her nursing skills and home-based care initiatives in the rural area of Jozini in KwaZulu-Natal. Since 1999 she has travelled hundreds of kilometres on a daily basis to educate and train home-based caregivers in a special 10-day course designed for women with only primary school education. Together with team-workers and stakeholder partnerships within the community, Maoela has developed a network of 150 home-based caregivers, which is founded on female volunteers but extends to traditional healers and leaders, as well as religious ministers.
COOKIE EDWARDS, Social Services finalist, pioneered and still co-ordinates the KwaZulu-Natal Network of Violence Against Women, which played a major role in the New Domestic Violence Act of 1999, the setting up of the Durban Family Court and numerous public safety outreach programmes aimed at improving the fate of abused women in South Africa. Cookie has been a compassionate ear for her community in Durban and a voice and offers a haven for abused women in KwaZulu-Natal. She campaigns progressively with government and NGOs, and plays a major role in the securing of national and international funding to offer hope to abused women throughout the country.
SISTER PRISCILLA DLAMINI, Social Services finalist, a Catholic nun since the age of 15, has single-handedly (along with a R10 000 grant), converted old stables into a haven for the destitute hordes of rejected HIV patients dying as beggars in the vast sugar plantations in northern KwaZulu-Natal hills. She has since received international recognition for her Holy Cross AIDS Hospice in eMoyeni near Gingindlovu, Eshowe. With no funding for modern medicines, she combined traditional healers?’ home remedies to treat opportunistic infections among her AIDS patients and her herb garden is now so renowned that healers from the Eastern Cape and Swaziland are buying her remedies. Sister Priscilla and her volunteer caregivers now receive funding from the Holy Cross Children?’s Trust in London to take case of an additional 453 child-headed households and 1 121 orphans, and provide home-based care for 2 011 people, and her Hospice has become Spoornet?’s Corporate Social Investment flagship in the region. |
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