Next year in East London

Top 2 Sophumelela
Bottom 3 from the Sunshine Place

Tonight I fly back to Cape Town after spending the past three weeks here in East London. It has been a lot of ups and downs in trying to figure out if this where I'm suppose to be next year and finish my time in South Africa. I appreicate your prayers and walking alongside me during this time of transition.

My first couple weeks here were a little frustrating, though I enjoyed my time in the schools and talking with the students and challenging some of the myths they have about the US.

This this past week, I had the opportunity to meet Marnieni, the person in charge of Sunshine Place, the children's home across the street from the YFC building. Currently, they have 17 children that are staying there. Ranging in ages from 4 months to 17 years old. They are currently in the process of building a new home that will be next door to the child welfare office and having one two children per room, so there is more privacy for the children. Also, this will give them the chance to meet the needs of the children on a more structured basis and able to keep more of any eye on them, though it's a two year process by the time the move happens. Most of the children who are at the home are there because their home life was an unsafe environment and the child welfare services have stepped in for the safety of the child. Their goal is to eventually to have that child move back into the community or with another relative and not stay permanently in the home, though unfortunately that hasn't always been the case. I would be involved with assisting the children with their homework from 3-5pm on a regular basis and will be doing counseling with children. This is a great way for me to give back to the community and empower the generation of our future.

Today, I had the opportunity to visit, Sophumelela (which is a Xhosa word meaning we will succeed). Sophumelela receives all their funding through PEPFAR (President Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) which is supported through the US. Sophumelela is part of a local Baptist church here in East London, whose goal is to meet the needs of the whole person and not just the AIDS part. Sophumelela emcompasses a lot of aspects: from a local daycare facility (Little Sparklers) for HIV+ children or whose parents are HIV+, to a job creation program for men and women, where the men learn labor skills and the women learn beading, sewning, etc., to a clinic and handing out ARV medication to patients within the community. Sophumelela opened its doors to the public in December 2004, since then it has reached over 3,000 people and currently has over 800 people they serve on a regular basis. The patient can meet with a dietician, the doctor, receive counseling and also is assigned a mentor who will travel on a weekly basis to their community where they stay and make sure that they are moving forward within their community and that their needs are being met. Each mentor serves up to 30 people. I'm not sure where my involvement will be, but I know they are excited about me transferring to the East London area and are excited about having me volunteer my time there. At the moment, they talked about me getting involved with counseling and also AIDS/HIV+ education within the schools and I would like to spend some of my time working along the teachers in the daycare facility. I plan on staying in contact with Siya, one of the local chaplains, who also gave me the tour today. Their website is www.fightingaidsinafrica.co.za.

I'm scheduled to meet with Mike, the director for the East London branch, before I leave today. Then I will have a better understanding on where things stand, but I have to say that at the moment I am 90% confident about transferring here to the East London branch. I have more peace about the whole thing and more ready to make the leap.