Joan is volunteering for Wola Nani (http://www.wolanani.co.za/), a NGO focused on caring for those affected by and infected with HIV/Aids. Wola Nani (which means “embrace” in Xhosa, the language of most black people here) began in 1994 and so they have a long history here and a good reputation for their work. There are 4 foci to their work. The first is managing a staff of 19 lay counselors who do HIV testing in in 9 public health clinics in the Cape Town area. The Department of Health for the Province of the Western Cape (a province is probably equivalent to our state) contracts with Wola Nani to do this work. These contracts are from year to year and the end of the current fiscal year is March 30th. There is a lot of concern that the Health Department won’t have sufficient funds for next year’s contract (understandably creating a lot of tension among staff). The Cape Times newspaper reports that there is not enough money in the Global Fund, which is a major source of the funds the Dept of Health uses for this work. In addition to voluntary HIV testing, some of the lay counselors do ARV adherence counseling. The Health Dept provides training for all of these roles and if you are certified to do ARV counseling, you get paid more. Actually Wola Nani has a contract from the Health Dept to do the training for the finger stick HIV testing – they are the only NGO in the province with such a training contract. I have visited all the clinics and met the counselors. One of my roles here is to provided one-to-one counseling for these counselors, because most of them have challenged lives and over half are HIV+ (although there status is not known to me).
A second focus of their work is income generation for about 50 HIV+ women, who were unemployed. The women produce crafts which are sold internationally (e.g., West Elm buys from them). Their primary products are paper mâché bowls. (You can view these on their website, if interested.) This has become a big business for them and they are looking to develop this project into a social enterprise, the newer term to replace “income generation.” They continue to grow this business and it supports the women and also increases the sustainability of the organization, which is, of course, a major issue for non-profits everywhere in the world. Although I know nothing about enterprise development (besides what I am reading), I will be assisting the Executive Director in writing a strategic plan for Wola Nani’s future, which will be useful in fund raising. I am still waiting for the first draft, however.
The third area of their work is an orphan and vulnerable children (OVC) programme. They currently have 2 sites in townships, which are the very depressed housing areas where black people were moved during apartheid. Their shelters are primarily shacks and these townships experience much violence and crime. Over 50% of the people are unemployed. This is the area of work that I am most invested in and feel that I can contribute most to. I am meeting weekly with the Wola Nani caregivers to provide some training to them in working with the children 6-18 years who come after school for the programme. They provide a nutritious meal, as well as food parcels to some of the needier families. This programme is funded by the Provincial Dept of Social Development, again via annual contracts. I hope to develop a logic model (with evaluation plan) for their programme and draft text that will be useful in seeking funds from other sources besides the government. I am seeking books and supplies for the programme and so far have lined up 4 sources of book donations plus exercise equipment from a major sports club here. A major problem is that the space for the programmes is dreadful – one in a “container” (think small trailer) with no outside land where the kids can play. The Exec Director has a wonderful vision for a community center with a building, food garden, crèche for young children, craft generation space, play area, etc. The Prince of Monaco has promised the money to build a building as soon as Wola Nani can get a parcel of land. I would really love to help Moira realize this dream for Wola Nani, but alas, my time will be too limited to get very far. Maybe I will keep writing for them at home – or maybe come back!!
The fourth area of work, they call research and training. So far the training for doing finger stick HIV testing is the only project, which they have demonstrated they can do effectively. I would love to work with Wola Nani on some research projects (i.e., real evaluation), but I keep reminding myself that I have retired and that was in the past. Also, I don’t think Wola Nani is that interested in doing research, per se, although it would be wonderful if they could demonstrate the efficacy of the work they are doing. Interestingly, the monitoring they do is primarily head counts of the number of people they serve – that is all the departments of health and social development want to know about. I don’t mean to sound judgmental, but it would be good to know if the work being done actually makes a difference!!
I will be doing a motivational interviewing training with their staff in the office headquarters – a 12 hour training over 6 days. This is the training that I do for the public health institute at UMN every summer and have done for several health-related organizations in Minnesota over the last 10 years.
I really enjoy what I am doing here. The staff I work with are wonderful and engage with me every day in such a warm way. It will be hard to leave them in 5 weeks.
