New community centre arises
2008-09-18
THE Operations Manager of Drakenstein Hospice, Maria von Backström, was one of the speakers at the Impumelelo Innovations Award Trust’s second HIV/Aids workshop in Cape Town last week. Drakenstein Hospice scored a coveted Silver Impumelelo Award in May this year, receiving R20 000. Every year Impumelelo awards creative and exceptional responses to social issues like HIV/Aids. This exemplary initiative was one of 14 projects awarded in Impumelelo’s silver category and one of 16 award winners from the Western Cape selected from more than 130 hopefuls from across South Africa. As the only organisation of its kind working in the district, the role of Drakenstein Hospice in the lives of families affected by chronic and terminal illness is indelible. Started in 1991, it sees on average 270 patients every month since 2007, with the help of their dedicated army of 18 home-based carers and the demand is growing. The prevalence of HIV/Aids and its devastating impact on poor families, especially children, has highlighted the need for resources to support, care for and treat them specifically. The construction of a multi-purpose centre, Butterfly House, in Fairyland due to be completed in October, is set to expand the hospice’s reach. Currently there are 130 HIV positive patients, 50 positive children, and about 120 children that are affected by the pandemic on their books. Butterfly House is envisioned to service the community with a preschool, and an after care for school learners, a skills development day care for adults and an opportunity for remedial education for older children that are too sick to be in school. Maria has been co-ordinating this process and is excited about the possibilities of giving hope to those that need it most. Enabling families by making resources available is what inspires Maria. She believes in Butterfly House and Drakenstein Hospice because “here I feel part of a community that is growing together towards one common ideal”. Drakenstein Hospice is an example of a national best practice model and Maria presented this in the Treatment and Palliative Care session along with other previous Impumelelo award winners from KwaZulu-Natal, and the Western and Eastern Cape. Impumelelo has been rewarding excellence in public service delivery since 1999. Since then, it has amassed an invaluable database of innovative projects like Drakenstein Hospice. Using these examples of best practice, Impumelelo has grouped them into sectors and created a series of ‘best practice case study’ booklets. Workshops are held in each sector using these booklets to train government, civil society and other NGOs in how to solve similar problems they may have faced that other projects have found solutions to. They are spreading awareness that there is no need to reinvent the wheel and that there are African solutions to African problems that are already working in South Africa. Maria will be part of this drive for replication of best practice at the second HIV/Aids workshop. More than 100 participants are set to share and analyse best practice in the provision of services to those infected and affected by the pandemic, and hopefully incorporate these lessons into current policy and practice.
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