Projects > Community Care Centres

Community Based Care Centres

In conjunction with our Home Based Care programme we plan to set up Community Based Care Centres which will be physical focal points within affected communities, allowing those who have sick and dying family members to get in touch with other members of the community who have received training from UVHAA in responding to the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

This will make a profound difference to the many people who have sick and dying family members, no access to transport in order to reach the far away hospital, and no money even if they did have access to transport. Indeed, many of these families live in dire poverty and do not even have sufficient food to feed the healthy, or even soap and water. In many cases there are no healthy people available to care for the sick, or children whose parents have perished.

Our Care Centre programme will thus serve to bring people together, empower them to both learn how to care for the sick and dying, and also provide a place where people can be brought to receive treatment from our Home Based Care teams who will attend the Care Centre’s at appointed times.

In June 2008 we held meeting with the Department of Agriculture and have submitted a proposal which is likely to lead to implementing our first Community Care Centre in Amandawe.

This proposal involves two vandalised buildings which we hope to be given on a free lease by the Dept of Agriculture. We will then need to secure funding (about £5000) in order to renovate the buildings. Once renovated, the building will provide a much needed service to the local communities, and will enable more people to access our services in a better environment.

Without visiting Umdoni and Vulamehlo it is hard to envisage the extremely rural nature of these areas, and the almost complete lack of infrastructure, which makes it difficult to access sick people whose huts are often over an hour's walk from the mud road.

As security is an issue (we will have a computer in each Care Centre in order to record client details and the services they have received) we are happy that we have negotiated for the Amandawe Centre to be manned 24 hours as a satellite police station.

When finalised, this project will be a good example of success in our aim to develop mutually beneficial partnerships between communities, UVHAA and government agencies.