Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2002. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Mail & Guardian (Johannesburg) - October 25, 2002
Cheryl Goodenough
Another trainer says some of the people she began to visit after receiving the training have died.
"Two of my patients died last week. The third died in my hands yesterday. I closed her eyes and washed her," said one trainer.
Another said: "They had all left him, and he was very sick and hungry. I bought him an ice cream and washed him. Then I called the police to get an ambulance. I visited him in hospital. I was the only person to visit him. He died the next day."
The stories are told by adult literacy teachers who have been involved in Operation Upgrade's Literacy against Aids project being run in Durban. The NGO has included Aids as a topic in its training courses for several years, but recently it became evident that a dedicated project was necessary because tutors found that many approaches used to spread knowledge about Aids are not effective in poorer communities.
The organisation's director, Pat Dean, says illiterate people and literacy learners were not benefiting from information disseminated on pamphlets and posters or in newspapers and other printed media.
About 150 adult basic education tutors, who are already conducting literacy training in their communities, have been trained as part of the project. In addition to using their literacy classes to develop Aids awareness among their learners, they have also obtained skills to provide counselling and home-care training in their communities.
The response to the courses was overwhelming and in follow-up workshops after tutors had begun to work in their communities it became apparent that they felt considerable satisfaction at being able to help people.
However, programme manager Thombi Bhengu says many of the tutors have been traumatised by their involvement with terminally ill people. They have also identified a number of problems that had been encountered, such as the lack of food for ill people, insurance companies refusing to pay out on policies where the deaths resulted from an Aids- related illness, Aids orphans who had to fend for themselves, running out of medication and protective materials, and obtaining access to ill people when families refused visits.
Bhengu says discussions among tutors and networking with other organisations and individuals have resulted in some headway being made in addressing some of the problems.
One tutor has plans to establish a building in which she and colleagues can offer an Aids feeding and counselling service. She has set up a community health forum and has found land. She is still attempting to get a donation of a container out of which to operate the service, but the group has in the meantime started a garden project to provide vegetables for the sick and local churches are providing food parcels.
In addition, one tutor has trained 60 young people as volunteer Aids workers, a policewoman with an adult education class has obtained permission to visit all such classes run by the municipality to talk about HIV/Aids and a rural tutor has started a community garden for Aids-affected families.
In some cases the tutors broke down doors or demanded keys to unlock doors behind which sick people lay in various stages of neglect, according to Bhengu.
Some family members had run away in fear of the disease. But many families were glad to be shown how to care for the sick.
However, a lack of food and care for Aids orphans remain the biggest problems encountered. The tutors have found that many of the people they encounter who are in the final stages of Aids are unable to get any food.
In an attempt to address the problem of resources for people who cannot afford food, the tutors have been instrumental in mobilising communities to set up projects to provide an income for people with Aids and their families. Groups have already started doing beadwork, making formal hats and crocheting.
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