Free testing, a huge success at the Randfontein Show

We know we've published this picture before but we're just so darn proud!

 The dust has settled after the Randfontein Show, we've managed to catch our collective breath and take the time needed to study and digest the effects and results achieved at the Show.
 "Our participation was an unqualified success," says Mzi Tskikitsha, Programme Manager of the Testing and Social Mobilisation Programme, an initiative operated in partnership with the Gauteng Department of Health.
 "To be honest, we were somewhat nervous before, as we've operated mostly in the Black community and knew, a large proportion of show-visitors are white. We did not know what to expect or how we'd be received.
 "But we need not have worried. The response was fantastic. Over 900 people, approximately two thirds of whom were women, made use of the free testing and screening services on offer," he says.

 Counselled

 On-the-spot tests were done for HIV, high blood-pressure and high blood-sugar and, where necessary, people were counselled by trained counsellors and referred to clinics and other medical facilities.
 "What we discovered is, there may be a misconception that HIV is not a problem in the white community," says Mzi. "But a surprising number of people tested positive and it is obvious, a great deal of work needs to be done and we are already formulating plans to do so.
 "Urgent intervention is required."
 A highlight of the Randfontein Show was when the Carryou/Gauteng Department of Health, screening and testing stall was awarded second place in its category.
 "This is an amazing achievement, as it was the first time we had a stand at the show," says Mzi.
 "The award made us feel appreciated, gave us confidence and filled us with pride. It made us feel a part of the whole community."

Getting snipped can save your life!

Specially-trained nurses, Thapelo Mpshane and Ratanang Mathebula, assist with a circumcision procedure on a patient at the Carryou Ministry Clinic in Randfontein.

 There is compelling evidence from three studies that male circumcision reduces the risk of heterosexually acquired HIV infection in men by approximately 60%!
 Two studies focused on young urban men (ages 18 to 24) in Kenya and South Africa, whereas a third concentrated on a larger cross-section of rural men (ages 15 to 49) in Uganda. Over 11,000 men volunteered for the trials with one group receiving circumcision on enrollment and a control group delaying surgery until the end of the study.
 By tracking newly acquired infections in both groups, investigators discovered that circumcision cut HIV transmission rates by 55 to 65 percent. In fact, all three trials were stopped early due to the overwhelming evidence of circumcision's protective effect.
 "It was striking that the trials were in very different settings, but yielded consistent results," says Ronald Gray, study leader for the Uganda trial and epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore.
 "This was the largest protective effect ever seen next to condom use," adds Sten Vermund, director of the Institute for Global Health at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, Tenn.ty

Permanent Circumcision Facility

 It was with this in mind that Carryou Ministry entered into a partnership agreement with SR Nana Mokoena  to set up a permanent circumcision facility at their offices in Randfontein.
 "We see this as another way to serve the community," says Rev. Lawrence Mabaso, Carryou Ministry's General Manager.
 Funded by Right to Care and US Aid, the facility makes use of a number of specially trained nurses and a doctor and, in the two months it's operated, around 250 males have been snipped.
  "We were involved in a similar project near Johannesburg and felt we could also offer our services in Randfontein which would mean people would not have to travel so far to receive a free service,” says Thapelo Mpshane, one of the nurses at Carryou.
  Discussions started with Carryou Ministry and the new project was endorsed.

Free

 The service is offered free of charge to all males from age 10 upwards.
 "It's quick and easy and life-saving," says Thapelo. "The process requires the patient fill in the relevant forms, receive some counselling, have an HIV test and then have the actual circumcision. The whole thing takes between an hour and ninety minutes."
 Patients return for a check up after two days, then seven days and finally at six weeks, after which they may resume sex.
 "Because some people live in informal settlements far from the main facility, we offer check up services at Vleikop and Elandsvlei," says Rev. Mabaso. "We urge all men to get circumcised, as it truly can save their lives."

Read this article about AIDS and circumcision. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/circumcision-and-aids/

Providing health and dignity right to the last breath

Africa can be a tough place and, although the South African government has made progress in setting up clinics and primary healthcare facilities in many rural communities, the simple fact is, sometimes patients are just too ill to get to one of those facilities.

It is for this reason that Carryou Ministry operates an extensive home-based care program.

“Teams of workers walk from home to home, caring for people who need physical and emotional support during their illness,” says Mzi Tshikitsha, Home-based care Programme Manager.

“Part of the service we also provide is to be with patients during their final hours.”

Mzi Tshikitsha

It's an emotionally difficult job but it is both vital and rewarding.

“The Home-Based Care program strives to achieve and maintain a high standard of palliative care that is both empathetic and offers dignity to all patients unable to access alternative medical care,” says Mzi.

“We do this by carrying out basic but essential tasks like washing and feeding the patient, moving them to help prevent bed sores and ensuring he or she takes medication as prescribed.

“In addition, Care workers also assist the patients' families by feeding the family, cleaning their houses, washing clothes and collecting water from community taps.

“The Care workers are also trained to counsel children and adults, and as such, can offer emotional and spiritual counseling to patients and their families. They also ensure children are not exposed to traumatic situations,” he says.

But, as always, money needed to do the important work, is in short supply.

“We do our best to provide food parcels for destitute families and orphans,” says Mzi.

“Parcels include maize-based porridge, soup, sugar, salt, oil, beans, peanuts, matches and washing powder. Fortified nutritional meals are provided free of charge for individuals infected with HIV and those with compromised immune systems.

“But, in truth, without the financial support we get from US-based, Sue Heywood and her supporters in the USA, we would not be able to supply many of these essential items.”

Yet, despite the difficulties, Carryou Ministry's Home-Based Care program still manages to make life easier for more than 250 people every month.

Their work has seen some Tuberculosis sufferers and patients on anti-retroviral drug programmes, recover enough to be able to return to work.

In addition, door to door awareness campaigns were conducted at 15 informal settlements where 200 000 male condoms and 16000 female condoms were distributed in an effort to help prevent the spread of HIV and AIDS.

“We are starting to see the message get out there,” says Mzi “and now people are starting to voluntarily disclose their HIV status – something that did not happen in the past.”

If you would like to help with this vitally important work please click the “How you can help” link on the right or contact us.

More than just a feeding scheme: a vital community hub

 Today, standing in the dry, dusty, OR Tambo informal settlement some ten kilometres outside the town centre of Randfontein, it's hard to believe, or even imagine that last year this was the site of fierce flash flooding that saw some families’ homes and possessions washed away.

  But, at 3am on 20 February, that is exactly what happened when the heavens opened causing some shacks to collapse and washed away furniture and belongings.

  Carryou Ministry, who operate a creche and feeding program in the settlement, together with the West Rand Disaster Management team was called in to help. All in all, 37 families were affected.

 “Carryou Ministry undertook to accommodate the women and children of the affected families in the Carryou Drop-in Centre (DIC) while the men decided to stay with their belongings and re-build their shacks,” says Brenda Naholo, Programme Manager for the DIC.
 “For the next week the women and children had a roof over their heads and running water and each day the families, including the men, received two cooked meals. The local municipality donated blankets.

 “We prepared breakfast and lunch and Pillar of Strength, an organisation doing home-based care in the area made supper,” she says.

 “Women and children slept in the DIC centre at night but the men chose to take care of their belongings and returned to their shacks after having their meals.

 “Since then we have also assisted families to apply for and obtain important documents lost in the floods such as identification documents and birth certificates.”

Vital Hub

 

  The Carryou DIC was established as a feeding point for orphaned and vulnerable children but it is much more than that. It is a vital hub and beacon of hope for the impoverished community.

  Kids are not only fed but receive assistance with homework and schoolwork, some of it given by unemployed men in the settlement.

  But conditions are not ideal. Children do their homework in one of the containers but must sit on the floor as there are no chairs or tables yet. It is a challenge but still better than that experienced by many other kids in other parts of the country.

  The DIC also offers, counseling services, life-skills programs that cover issues like HIV/AIDS prevention, TB awareness and teenage pregnancies and help given to community members who need to obtain birth certificates and identity documents.

  In the past year the following Community Involvement and Education Programmes were run at the centre:

• Teenage pregnancy awareness campaign
• Community mobilisation on vaccination
• Pap smear awareness
• Mobilisation on child  negligence and their rights
• Candle light event
• HIV AIDS Awareness
• Awareness on Foster Care for foster parents

Many other activities also take place at the DIC including:

• Caregivers support group once a month
• Boys and girls support groups separately  once a month
• Youth support group
• Child care forums
• Teenage support groups
• Community leaders support group  to discuss issues affecting the community

  It’s a huge task that must somehow be done with limited financial resources.

 “We get many referrals and requests for assistance from surrounding schools and communities, “ says Brenda.

 “It is a great challenge that we face as increasing numbers of kids are being orphaned as a result of the HIV and AIDS pandemic. In just the past year, the number of people receiving assistance at the OR Tambo DIC has increased by 25%!

 “But we receive assistance from many quarters, even internationally, For example, at least 22 food parcels are distributed to child/granny/sick parent households every month as a result of the fund-raising efforts of Sue Heywood and her supporters in the USA.”

If you would like to know more about the work of Carryou Ministry or would like to offer assistance, please click on the “How you can help” link on the right of this page.

Please be so kind as to share this blog on your social networking platforms.

Providing hope in a bleak place

O.R. Tambo Informal Settlement is a squatter camp at Elandsvlei, about 10 kilometres outside the Randfontein town centre.
 It is a grim place, of that there is no doubt. Residents live in shacks that they construct themselves, made from whatever materials they are able to scrounge. In summer it is like living in the bowels of hell and winter is a thoroughly miserable experience. In some years, shacks are washed away by heavy rains.
 Water must be collected from large plastic tanks set up at the entrance to the camp that are filled every few days by the Randfontein Town Council. Sewage is rudimentary.

 The people who live in O.R. Tambo are desperately poor. Some are orphaned children who have no choice but to fend for themselves. Without help, the community, especially the children, would have little hope of knowing anything else and would simply slip into the abyss made up of the millions of the unknown, desperate, poor in South Africa.
 But there is hope for these vulnerable people.
 At the end of March 2012 Carryou Ministry opened a Drop-in Centre at Elandsvlei. The facility provides a nutritious, cooked meal to around 600 children, six days a week. It also supplies daily meals to kids at a nearby school.
 There is also a nursery school that operates at the Carryou Drop-in Centre where, currently, 22 pre-school kids are fed, cared for and prepared for school.
 In the afternoons, trained care-givers are on hand to help both primary and high-school children complete their school homework and prepare them for their exams.
 In addition, counseling services are made available, life-skills programs that cover issues like HIV/AIDS prevention, TB awareness and teenage preganancies, are run and help is given in obtaining birth certificates and identity documents.
 "As a society it is our God-given duty to give these kids a hand-up in life," says Rev Lawrence Mabaso, General Manager of Carryou Ministry. "Who knows what potential lies amongst them and just needs a little help, to be realized?"

 

 

 

From little acorns great oaks grow!

Sister Pam Jamison, Carryou Ministry Founder

"We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop." - Mother Theresa of Calcutta.

 There can be little doubt HIV and AIDS is one the greatest challenges this world faces, with millions of people dying or  becoming infected every year.
 One of the areas hardest hit, is Africa and the impact in South Africa is enormous. Every day, families are left devastated and children, of all ages, are left without parents and must fend for themselves.
 It is an enormous problem. In a study conducted in 2006, an estimated 122 000 -- almost 1% of the population -- lived in child-headed households.
 The sheer magnitude of the deadly pandemic meant that the South African Government, even with the best of intentions,  struggled to provide adequate care and support and ordinary South Africans, of all persuasions, knew they could not simply sit on their hands and do nothing.

Randfontein

 In Randfontein, a former mining-town some 40 kilometres west of Johannesburg the situation was no different but it was to be the site of the start of something amazing in 2000.
 It all started when the Anglican Church, St. John the Divine, asked Pam Jamison, member of the congregation and a nursing sister to attend an AIDS 'trainer of trainers' course. This was because increasing numbers of people were turning to the church for assistance in dealing with the trauma of HIV and AIDS.
 Pam completed the course and soon began to care for patients in Toekomsrus, a township bordering Randfontein. Word quickly spread however, and she was asked to train others so they too, could care for the sick.
 And it wasn't long before care-givers in other townships and rural areas got to hear of Pam's training and came flocking to her for help and so, Carryou Ministry was born.
 "It just grew," says Pam. "Carryou Ministry is a non-profit organization involved in home-based care for the sick and elderly, as well as people affected by HIV/AIDS.
 "As a result of the devastating disease our biggest challenge now, is caring for the children left behind."

Inspired

 Carryou Ministry's work is inspired by the Bible reading from Matthew 25:35.
"For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick, and you looked after me."
 "We started this ministry in with no resources - just sick people and a strong faith," says Pam. "We prayed to God to lead us according to His purposes, which He always has done.
 "The name Carryou can be found in Isaiah 46:4, where God says: 'I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.'"
 And God has been true to his promise.
 Today Carryou Ministry feeds around 1 000 people (mainly children) six days of the week, provides home-based care to over 200 terminally-ill patients, helps hundreds of kids with their school homework every day and provides a variety of other  counseling and support-services.