A place of rest in the depths of despair

Catholic bishop Kevin Dowling, a native of Pretoria, has been working in the Rustenberg area since 1991 and has personally experienced the pain and suffering of the people he serves.

"I had a dream of creating a place where people could find rest and die surrounded by people who love and care for them," says the Catholic bishop.

Today, that place is a reality.

"Single mothers, refugees, people with no hope and full of despair - I have sat with them all in their shacks. Their pain is my pain," he said.

For the past 14 years, Dowling has been working with close on 250 000 desperately poor people who live in sprawling informal settlements where the HIV infection rate is fast approaching 50 percent.

"It's a place where a seven-year-old girl is taking care of five younger siblings and her mother who's covered in vomit and diarrhoea and dying of HIV/AIDS in a shack.

"It's a place where there are no schools, no electricity, no water and no clinics," Dowling said.

Recently named one of Time magazine's hereos for 2005, Dowling has dedicated his life to the upliftment of the community he serves.

Out of the depths of despair and poverty, Dowling has created a place of hope, love and caring - the Tapologo HIV/AIDS Project and Hospice.

Dowling brought together representatives of various organisations in the Rustenberg area including local health workers, non-governmental organisations, community-based organisations, and traditional leaders in order to initiate a holistic assault on HIV/AIDS.

Prior to the establishment of Tapologo, which means a place of rest in Setswana, the closest clinic to many of those needing it was no less than two taxi-rides away in the city of Rustenberg.

Today, there is a clinic in nearly all 10 informal settlements in the area staffed by health workers from the Tapologo HIV/AIDS project.

"We have 105 health care workers and nine professional nurses working in these clinics, close on 500 individuals - 26 of them children - have been put and antiretroviral (ARVs) therapy," Dowling said.

Initially established to fulfil Dowling's dream; Tapologo has grown to include a hospice, an orphans and vulnerable children programme, and antiretroviral therapy programme, a psycho-social support programme, a home-based care programme and training programmes.

Dowling is respected as an exceptional prelate, and is internationally recognised as an authority on the social aspects of HIV/AIDS. He is also the only bishop to speak out against the Catholic church's stance on condoms, describing it as a "death-dealing code".

"Since we started our work here, more and more people are coming forward to be tested as they see their neighbours getting well.

"There is hope for the future now," Dowling said.

Success Story: Boniwe Sweline:

Boniwe Sweline and one of her children, 10-month-old Nondumiso, are just two of those who have benefited from the provision of ARVs. Unemployed and a widow with four children, including a set of 10-month-old twins, Sweline used to scavenge on the rubbish heaps of Rustenberg to feed her family.

She cherished everything she found, from a near rotten apple to the drops of milk in a discarded milk bottle. That was until volunteer workers from the Tapologo HIV/AIDS Project came across her and told her about the project.

"When we found her we encouraged her to go for an HIV test which she did. She discovered she and one twin are positive," Dr Dorothy Setshogoe of the Tapologo outreach programme said.

Through the programme, Sweline has not only been able to access ARVs for herself but for her daughter as well. In addition she has also been able get child support grants for the twins.

"From living on rubbish, I am now able to buy some food for my children. This would not have been possible without the help I have been getting," Sweline said.