BLOG from Africa Part I: Community Mothers at Yabonga

This week our colleague Anouk pays a working visit to our projects in Africa. This is her blog:

''This morning I visited the Yabonga office in Cape Town, South Africa for a team meeting. Here all programme managers gave us an update about the past months and they informed us about their plans for the next months. It strikes me how very passionate they are and at the same time also critical. It is obvious the team wants to make the most of this programme.

After this I visited 2 Community Mothers: Kholiswa Nkolisa and Nomasabe Ndevu. Every day these committed Community Mothers are taking care of children that are directly or indirectly affected by AIDS. A safe home where they feel accepted, where the ‘mother’ takes care of them and where they can play with other kids.

My first visit is with Kholiswa. She takes care of children from 5-9 years old. She tells me the children come to her directly from school. Here they get a warm, nutritious meal. Today it’s a delicious bowl of pasta. After this meal we did a round of introductions. From here I went to Nomasabe, another Community Mother. She takes care of children who are a bit older, from 9 – 13 years. We sang and danced. Take a look at the film:

Despite it being a very cheerful visit, it was also impressive to realise that all of these children, in their own way, are directly or indirectly affected by HIV. For that reason the counsellors helping the children to open up and deal with these things are terribly important. It also pleases me a lot to see the Community Mothers are actual mothers to the kids!

After the special visit at the Community Mothers I continued to the Yabonga Youth Centre. Here the older children (14+) receive education and guidance about various subjects. Today this was ‘Sex and sexuality’. In the African culture this subject is difficult to talk about but therefore so very important.''

Would you like to know more about the Community Mothers of Yabonga? Read more.