HOPE Worldwide - carrying a torch for the infected and affected

HOPE Worldwide's office in Cato Manor, KwaZulu-Natal, is situated at the Cato Manor (Ekuphileni) Clinic and is supervised by the HOPE Worldwide office in Soweto. The project provides support and care for underprivileged people who are HIV-positive and their loved ones, using a model proven in Soweto.

What is home-based care?

We've become used to a Westernised model of health care, one that largely hands over responsibility for the care of a patient to the doctor or the hospital. Yet, even in highly developed nations like the USA, that model has proved inadequate for the HIV/AIDS epidemic. HIV/AIDS is different from other infectious diseases in some important respects, which makes it appropriate to seek another model for care.

Social Grants Information

"Social assistance" is a grant one can receive from the government if one has limited or no sources of income and cannot pay for food and shelter. This money comes from a non-contributory fund that the government supports through taxes and other income sources. South Africa does not have a universal social security system, but applies a "means test" to make sure that only those in genuine need qualify for assistance.

Worrying attitudes amongst Kenyan youth towards HIV/AIDS

A small-scale discussion group on youth attitudes to sexuality and HIV/AIDS by the Kenya AIDS Intervention Prevention Project Group (KAIPPG) in Kakamega, western Kenya, has suggested that young Kenyans remain seriously misinformed about AIDS, and that many continue to engage in unsafe sexual practices.

HIV/AIDS care & counselling - A multidisciplinary approach

"The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The next best time is now". This African proverb starts the preface of "HIV/AIDS Care & Counselling" and sets the tone for its subject. It's given a further literary touch with extracts from the epic poem "Raka" starting every chapter. The author, Dr Alta van Dyk, has used it as a metaphor for the destruction HIV/AIDS inflicts on individuals and the community. She is a psychologist, nurse, teacher and HIV/AIDS counsellor.

Involving communities improves programme success

Mother-to-child-transmission is the primary route of HIV infection in children. UNAIDS estimates that in 2001, about 800,000 children under age 15 became newly infected with HIV/AIDS. Clinical trials in several countries have shown that mother-to-child transmission of HIV can be greatly reduced by administering a short, affordable course of anti-retroviral therapy to pregnant women.

Scaling up community support

An excellent new report on scaling up community support for orphans and other vulnerable children is available to download from the website of the International HIV/AIDS Alliance. The title of the report is "Expanding Community-Based Support for Orphans and Vulnerable Children."

Community health care serves the people

The HIV/AIDS pandemic in KwaZulu-Natal is overwhelming some public hospitals' capacity to provide adequate care for patients living with HIV/AIDS. The solution to this lies in community-driven health-care projects, local health workers told PlusNews.

iKhaya Lobomi - House of Life

iKhaya Lobomi is a hospice centre based in the Valley of a Thousand Hills in KwaZulu-Natal and founded by two community members, Patience and Zimele Mavata. With an HIV prevalence of one in two being observed by staff at the nearby Botha's Hill Clinic, such a hospice is an essential facility in this community.

Gozololo Halfway House for AIDS orphans opened

Ms Miram Cele has dedicated most of her adult life to trying to keep children off the streets and away from danger. Her struggle, which started when she became involved with children traumatised and orphaned by the political violence in the late 80s and early 90s, continues today with the growing number of children left without parents because of AIDS. So it was like a dream come true for Cele, the winner of the Martin Luther King prize, when the Gozololo Halfway House project for AIDS orphans was opened in KwaMashu recently.