COTLANDS COMMUNITY CENTRE OPENS ITS DOORS

Cotlands’ Home Based Care (HBC) programme in Soweto finally got its own home when this national children’s charity officially cut the ribbon to open its new “Cotlands Community Centre” in Diepkloof, Soweto on September 8.

The centre will be used as a base for the HBC programme’s support groups for the primary caregivers of HIV-infected children. These are women of different ages including grandmothers who care for their orphaned grandchildren. The support groups, attended by some 80 women every week, provide emotional support and empower the women with knowledge and skills to enable them to give quality care to their HIV infected children and grandchildren. Cotlands provides each participant with a cooked meal and a food parcel to take home at each weekly meeting. The new centre will also house the programme’s income-generating projects.

The purchase of the centre’s property was made possible through the generous sponsorship of De Beers and the National Basketball Association (NBA), and also Emerging Markets Benefit Limited. NBA players and coaches will attend the launch, together with representatives from De Beers, Cotlands and Cotlands beneficiaries.

Cotlands executive director, Jackie Schoeman, says “The opening of Cotlands Community Centre is a tremendously exciting milestone for us. We’ve been working towards establishing a permanent base for this programme in Soweto for a long time and it’s wonderful to see our vision finally come to fruition.

“Cotlands HBC programme in Soweto was established to provide palliative care to chronically and terminally ill children in their homes and to empower their primary caregivers to care for them in the absence of a trained caregiver,” says Jackie. “Trained HBC workers under the supervision of a professional nurse and supported by a social worker and Cotlands volunteers, assist families to care for HIV-infected children and young orphans at home. Services range across the spectrum of needs, to ensure that families receive whatever support they need to care for their children adequately at home.

“Our support groups were started three years ago, and to meet the needs of the participants, income generating projects were initiated,” says Jackie. “At the launch we look forward to showcasing our HBC project in Soweto — in particular the income generating projects we’ve made available to the women in our programme,” says Jackie. “The mothers are doing craft work and the grannies are sewing pyjamas under the “Philagogo” (Live Granny) label.

“Now that the HBC programme has a centre to call home, our future plans include starting a more formal stimulation programme for the children.”

David Noko, Managing Director of De Beers Consolidated Mines, says: “We only have to look at the HIV/AIDS statistics in South Africa to get a sense of the desperate situation faced by many people, especially women and children. It is through the tremendous work of organisations such as Cotlands that we can provide assistance to those who are infected and affected by the HIV/AIDS pandemic.”

Cotlands provides a variety of residential and outreach projects to care for some 2 000 vulnerable children and their families, particularly those impacted by HIV/AIDS, around South Africa — every month. Despite the prevention of mother-to-child transmission programmes, many infected babies are still being born annually in Soweto. This number is increased by children who come from other provinces, whose families perceive Gauteng to be better resourced to deal with children living with AIDS.

Cotlands recently celebrated the official opening of another project — “Cotlands House” — a new residential care project accommodating children who are clinically well and receiving antiretroviral therapy (ART), and who have embarked on formal schooling.

For more information on Cotlands’ HBC programme, contact Busi on (011) 683 7200, email her at busi@cotlands.org or visit the Cotlands website at www.cotlands.org