children

Many of the children we work with have no parents, the sad reality of the HIV epidemic sweeping across Africa. It is not uncommon to find 15 children living under 1 roof with an elderly grandparent, trying to survive on a government grant of less than £100 a month. As you can imagine, luxuries such as meat and sweets are not enjoyed by these families, let alone the basics of shelter, food, clothing and education.

Aurelia is a combination of Mother Teresa and Nelson Mandela. Soft, kind, gentle and humorous, yet at the same time determined and authoritative. This retired nurse took it upon herself to use her pension to buy food for children in her district, supplying them once a day with a warm meal; something which they would definitely not have enjoyed without her.

Combine this personality with the exposure of a Norwegian celebrity and the sheer determination of a South African based tour operator, and you are bound for success. These three people have, until recently, single handedly, enrolled over 600 European sponsors, each making a monthly contribution to the children at our project.

“Zulu Assist” is a small, non-bureaucratic and non-profit organisation striving to improve the lives of hundreds of people. Our recently joint venture with Rotary International to build 2 crèches and an orphanage where children living in crises situations can stay, has created large amounts of work which needs to get done. In addition to being assigned with the daily running of these establishments, we are assisting in building houses for elderly people, handing our “food parcels” donated to the people, basic education and generally improving the lives of these impoverished people. At our project, it is important to stress that there is no such thing as a "typical" day. Each day brings new challenges and new tasks, and often our well-laid plans for the day are changed by necessity; as we hear of a child in need which needs to be dealt with immediately.

Our project is currently operating out of 4 satellite centres, so our local workers will visit these centres at regular intervals. We talk to the local workers we have in each of the centres, to find out how the centre is operating, and whether they are encountering any problems. We then also ask if there is news of any of our children, whether good or bad news. Good news is passed on to any relevant sponsor of a particular child, bad news is dealt with as far as we are able to do. This often involves un-cooperative authorities and/or relatives, but can also involve unacceptable behaviour of the child - although we find that this is very seldom!

Our main centre is visited almost on a daily basis. We play with the children, help hand out plates of food during lunch, and monitor that the children look healthy and happy. If we see children who appear ill, we discuss this with the local worker in charge of the area where this particular child lives, and together with the centre manager we decide on a plan of action, whether this involves taking the child to the doctor, to the hospital or just to get some over-the-counter medication at the local pharmacy. Once our foreign volunteers are familiar with the area and the routines, they often take the children to the doctor / hospital, and our volunteers are also responsible for visiting our children who may be admitted to hospital - these visits are usually the only visits they get while they are in hospital.

We also spend time in the crèche, to make sure that the children are well cared for, and that the daily routines are followed. We often bring toys and gifts from sponsors, unless these gifts are "earmarked" for a specific child, we always hand over gifts to the adult in charge, so that they can hand gifts out in a fair way and to make sure that the child most in need, gets the gift.

Much time is spent taking children to town, their sponsors often send money to buy clothes for "their" child. This is a time-consuming job, as we believe that the child should have the experience of coming to the shop to choose the colour of their trousers; to try on the shoes and to decide on the pattern on their T-shirt. This is a new experience for these children, as previously they have only ever had "hand-me-down" clothes and to be able to choose something yourself just adds to the pleasure. Our foreign volunteers often help with these shopping trips.

When we get a report of a child in need, our more experienced volunteers travel out to the homestead, with the local worker helping to translate. We look at the situation in the homestead, see the condition of the hut, and by asking questions we establish whether the child / children in this homestead ought to be enrolled in our project. We also ask whether they are receiving any government grants (which they are entitled to), and if not, we try to help so that the relevant applications are sent in to the authorities. Once we determine that a child needs to be helped by our project, we (our foreign volunteers) prepare a profile of the child. We ask set questions, and the answers to these questions plus a photo of the child is what makes this child's profile. Our foreign volunteers carry out this function, and upload the new profiles onto our publishing software.

There are always administrative tasks needing doing as well, so at least a couple of afternoons each week are spent in the local office, updating data on our children.