Gifts for the givers ? donations to Bergville volunteers

At a function hosted by HIVAN?s Bergville HBC Programme, local home-based care volunteers were presented with generous donations of goods from both the provincial Department of Health and the Drakensberg Sun Hotel.

Every year since 2000, the DoH has set aside funds to provide useful gifts for volunteers involved in youth programmes, DOTS (Directly Observed Therapy Support for TB patients) and home-based care of the terminally ill in this rural district. Because these dedicated people, who have few possessions of their own, regularly walk long distances in the open countryside through all weathers to meetings, or to feed, wash, nurse and comfort their patients, HIVAN?s HBC Programme Co-ordinator Phumzile Ndlovu suggested that they be given strong, large umbrellas to shield them from the hot sun and driving rain.

The Drakensberg Sun Hotel had offered their old bed-linen, crockery, cutlery and tablecloths to the Emmaus Hospital near Bergville, but the Medical Manager there, Dr Bernard Gaede, who has worked closely with these devoted community volunteers for some years, passed the donation on to them, for both personal use and for provision to their patients.

So it was that the 18 February 2004 was a day of great celebration for the caregivers, who came together for their first meeting of the year and were treated to both the hand-over of the goods and a festive lunch. ?Everything is valuable to these wonderful, mature women,? says Phumzile. ?We are all so grateful for these donations and the opportunity to acknowledge the kindness and faith of these carers, who are challenged by their own poverty, yet who serve their communities with such open hearts.?

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