Community-based health volunteers key in fighting HIV/AIDS

A Red Cross volunteer lights candles forming a ribbon, the symbol for solidarity with AIDS patients in Bujumbura, Burundi on 25 March 2006. (AFP/File/Dimitar Dilkoff)Johannesburg, South Africa: On the eve of World Health Day (7 April), the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies highlights the growing importance of its volunteers involved in community health activities, especially activities related to HIV/AIDS.

According to the World Health Organization, there is an estimated shortage of four million health workers worldwide, with severe deficiencies in low-income countries and rural areas. Red Cross/Red Crescent volunteers are playing a key support role and increasing the skills of people living with HIV and families for self care, especially in places where national health systems do not respond adequately to the needs of the local population.

The work of volunteers is being highlighted during a Symposium in Johannesburg on April 6-7 about integrated HIV/AIDS community home-based care. The event is organized by the International Federation in partnership with 10 National Societies in Southern Africa. “The Red Cross Red Crescent has accumulated a great deal of experience in home-based care programmes”, says Bernard Gardiner, manager of the Global HIV/AIDS programme for the International Federation in Geneva. “As a result, there has been a demand from other organizations for the Red Cross Red Crescent to share their experiences and knowledge,” he adds.

The Red Cross Red Crescent comparative advantage in care programming is due to its effective use of the widespread network of trained community-based volunteers who provide care and support services to the chronically ill and family members in their homes, which is also a valuable support to overburdened health facilities. The same community-based volunteers also give advice on HIV/AIDS prevention, hygiene, food and nutrition, water and sanitation, prevention of tuberculosis and malaria and adherence to treatment. They are also involved in anti-stigma campaigns with people living with HIV/AIDS.

At present, home-based care programmes run by National Societies in Southern Africa are reaching 50,000 people and approximately 85,000 orphans and other children made vulnerable by AIDS. The Johannesburg Symposium will see the launch of the new five year HIV/AIDS strategy in the region, further promoting home-based care and treatment support. “It is time to share the knowledge and experience which has been built up in Southern Africa and to champion the work of the committed and devoted Red Cross volunteers,” says Françoise Le Goff, Head of the International Federation’s regional delegation in Harare.


Source: http://www.worldvolunteerweb.org/news-views/news/community-based-health-volunteers-key-1144327542/lang/en.html

Namibia: At Home With a Home-Based Caregiver

OUT of love for her community and the urge to help where she can, Adriana Garises (30) did a home-based care course with Catholic AIDS Action and the Namibian Red Cross in 2003.

"I saw the huge need to care for affected and infected people at home level, as the hospitals cannot accommodate the masses of people anymore," she says.

Besides helping at the Bernhard Nordkamp soup kitchen for orphans and vulnerable children every day and helping children with their homework, Garises visits 12 AIDS sufferers every day to make sure they are taken care of.

Her days are so full with helping others that she only comes home around 22h00 at night and has almost no time for her own family.

Garises lives in a small rented room, which is not big enough to accommodate her four children.
They are now living with their grandmother.

"The community need me and they phone at irregular hours and need counselling, so I leave the children with my mother and I know they are safe and well taken care of.

I visit them as much as I can though," she says.

The responsibilities of a home-based caregiver include giving counselling and spiritual support to AIDS sufferers, cooking and cleaning for them and even bathing them and doing their laundry.

If patients have children they also need to be fed and clothed and helped with their homework.
Home-based caregivers must be a pillar of strength not only for their patients, but also the patients' families.

"We also need to ensure that our clients take their tablets regularly.
Many think they are like Panados and once they feel better they don't have to take them anymore.

They do not realise that antiretrovirals are for life," says Garises.

Caregivers also talk to people about providing for their dependents after their death.

They encourage people to draw up a last will and testament, especially if they have children.

"I always discuss with my clients who is going to look after their children once they pass away, as often children are forced to live with relatives who do not care for them and then the child ends up on the street.

It is better for parents and children to sit down and discuss the child's future together," Garises adds.

Her duties do not end once a client has passed away, as she helps the family with the funeral arrangements, gives bereavement counselling and makes sure that the children go to school and are properly taken care of.

Garises says she concentrates mostly on the children, as they suffer the most when their parents are sick and they need somebody to talk to.

Her own brother was HIV positive and when he passed away it was a very difficult time for her and that was when she realised that there were many infected and affected people in her community who were illiterate and afraid of stigmatisation who needed to be educated and looked after.

"When I go home sometimes I am very tired and feel like I cannot do this anymore, but then I pray and realise that my community needs me, so I get up the next day and go to where I am needed," she told The Namibian.

Another volunteer worker, Bertha Sungelesi (31), is currently doing the course in home-based care at Catholic AIDS Action and is helping out where she can.

She hails from the North and has been HIV positive for 13 years.

Sungelesi says she has been helping HIV-positive people because she can speak their language and can speak from personal experience, seeing that she is HIV positive herself.

She is currently taking care of 16 people, three of whom have been abandoned by their families.
Sungelesi believes that the high number of suicides in Namibia can be attributed to HIV-positive people being abandoned by their families.

"I talk to the families and tell them how important it is that they support and love their positive people and so far two have been accepted back into their families," she says.

Sungelesi is currently writing a book titled 'I want to talk before I die', which she hopes to publish not only in her native Oshiwambo but also in English once she finds a sponsor.

She says when she first found out about her HIV status she wanted to kill herself too, but after receiving counselling she realised that she could help other people in the same situation.

The book will deal with her feelings and how she changed her life around from being depressed to leading a productive, positive-thinking life.


Source: Tanja Bause, The Namibian, September 22nd, 2006