The Nightingale Fund sent the following pictures from their project in South Africa. The work HFF funded is ELUTHANDWENI SUPPORT & INFORMATION CENTRE (ESIC). This is a PowerPoint file you can download.
Additionally, they sent the following report:
REPORT ON NIGHTINGALE TRUST
It
has been just over four months since we received the $5,000.00 (R47,500.00)
grant from the Hull Family Foundation, and I thought it fitting to update you
on the activities of our organisation.
Our
home based care training course is still well-attended, and we are currently
running our third course for the year. The fourth course, due to start later
this month July is almost full. We believe that the high quality training, with
focus on individual development, are some of the factors which make our course
so popular.
Pictured
below are our students learning how to do bandaging, with a demonstration how
to tie a sling from our instructor (Sister Marie Glynn).
On
successful completion of the four-month course, we try to find suitable
placements for the newly qualified carers, mainly in the homes of private
patients. With the current economic downturn this has become increasingly
difficult. At present we have a large number of carers for whom it is
impossible to find placements. We are however confident in the service we
provide, and know that we have created a good, solid name for ourselves – in
fact, most of our new patients come to us via word-of-mouth. We trust that once
the economy improves, we will see an increase in the number of fee-for-service
patients.
We
are also on an advertising drive, via the pastoral care service offered by many
of the local churches, with a view better-informing the public of our service
and of finding new patients in need of care.
The
Eluthandweni Support and Information Centre (place where we “serve with love”),
is our community outreach project in a local low-income neighbourhood called
Motherwell. This project is also running smoothly, and we are providing care to
56 patients and fortnightly food parcels to 11 families. We have just received
a small grant to provide counselling training for our four carers – they deal
with families in crisis and with recently bereaved persons on a weekly basis,
and would benefit from additional knowledge in terms of how to deal with these situations.
A local church supports the Eluthandweni Centre, not just through provision of funds to cover the operational costs, but also supplying goods and assistance to members of the community. Below is Neville Hawken, one of the Hoogland Congregation members, assisting Yolande Noroyi on the knitting machine. Yolande’s mother, Catherine, sews items with material donated by Hoogland. The ladies are able to sell their products and generate some income for their families.
For
the past few months we have been struggling to find a project partner so that
we can replicate the Eluthandweni centre in other low income communities. Thus
far the main obstacle has been a lack of funding. However, the Department of
Health has recently advertised the availability of funding for just such
projects, and we have submitted our tender in partnership with an organisation
called “Jesus Is Lord Ministries” who render a wide range of services in a low
income area called Kleinskool. This Ministry feeds approximately 650 families
per week, runs annual craft workshops to capacitate local women with skills,
run a children’s church, weekly worship services and prayer groups.
They
do not however have a professional nurse or home based care workers who can
administer basic nursing care to the sick. This seems like the ideal
partnership, and we are hoping for a successful outcome of the tender (it is
envisaged that the tender adjudication will be completed by the end of this
month).
Thank
you once again to the Hull Family Foundation for the grant which has helped us
continue giving training and rendering a home based care service to those in
need of assistance.
Kind
regards,
Tracy Thomas
