NEWSLETTER AUTUMN 2013SCOTTISH CHARITY NUMBER SC032774

Scottish Borders Africa Aids Group

Thanks to all who bought tickets for the quilt raffleThis beautiful quilt was made, by hand, by Isa Scott, a member and generous supporter of SBAAG. It was raffled at various events over the summer, and raised the princely sum of £154 for SBAAG; if you saw it you would agree it is worth every penny!The raffle was drawn at the Jedburgh coffee evening on 4 September, and the winning ticket was held by Isabel Gordon, who has been secretary of SBAAG for many years; a fitting reward for her years of faithful service to the charity. Isa (right) and Isabel (left) are pictured below with the stunning quilt. photo by Lucy Fraser

Three Years in Malawi; Reflections on service with VSO in Africaby Catherine Robertson

In September 1992 I was one of twenty five volunteers who left the UK to work for Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) in Malawi, Central Africa. Since its inception VSO has enabled over 35,000 volunteers to work overseas, and at present they operate in over 50 countries, working closely with local people in ways designed to help individuals and communities. This can be through teaching, working alongside people and sharing ideas or often by direct raining in particular skills. The process is two way and most volunteers acknowledge that they learn much from the experience. I read the job description and decided to apply for a post that seemed to have some similarity to the job I had been doing in Galashiels Health Centre. A Registered General and Public Health Nurse/Midwife was needed to manage two Health Centres on a tea estate in northern Malawi.

After two weeks in country orientation, including language lessons, with VSO, and a four week orientation with the Nursing and Midwifery Council in Lilongwe, I arrived in Mzuzu, the nearest town to the tea estate in which I was going to work. Only then did the differences from my previous job become obvious!

One Medical Assistant, with three years training, and three enrolled Nurse Midwives staffed the two Health

Centres. They looked after the 3,000 workers employed on the estate. Their families and the surrounding villagers were also cared for. As most families had at least six children, we had at least 25,000 potential patients. The working day started at 6.30 a.m. and finished at 4.30 pm. with one hour off for lunch. The clinics were open six days one week, five the next, but as the sixth day that week was payday, the person ‘on call’ worked at least twenty hours that day.

The tea factory

Wmen preparing food for their children

Catherine and some school children

The tea factory

The commonest diagnoses at the clinics were malaria, trauma from the tea factory and various aches and strains suffered by the tea pluckers. Unlike any of my previous experience, we also had to cope with snake bites, crocodile bites, cholera and the effects of unknown drugs administered by the local witch doctor.

HIV/AIDS was just beginning to be seen in Malawi, and a large proportion of our time was spent giving health education at clinics, in schools, and to workers as they queued up to receive their pay. Songs were sung, short plays acted and quizzes held; all warning about the dangers of AIDS. On many mornings there were clinics for c h i l d r e n u n d e r f i v e , g i v i n g immunisations, and extra food for the undernour ished . Antenata l and postnatal clinics were held weekly, and after Hastings Banda, the life-president, retired we were able to start much needed family planning clinics.

Malawians are very warm friendly people, and the atmosphere in the clinic was extremely pleasant. In spite of the long hours and having to work some of the time with interpreters, this was probably the happiest three years of my working life! After three interesting years I returned home, promising my African friends to “tell the people of Scotland what Africa is really like”. This I have tried to do, and it has been made easier since SBAAG was founded in 2001.

September 2012 saw a reunion of the volunteers in my group. We had all gone our separate ways. Some of us had since holidayed in Malawi, and one man has maintained contact with the village he had lived in. Mike is an engineer who taught maths at a boys High School in southern Malawi. He formed a self-help group and before he left, built a maize mill for the village. The small sum charged for the use of the mill enabled the village elders to help vulnerable families. After twenty years a new mill was needed, and Mike tried to persuade us at the reunion to run in a sponsored marathon to raise the funds. Running one mile would be beyond most of the group, far less twenty six miles, so I asked SBAAG to help and within a few weeks £1000 was on its way to Malawi, and a new mill and a sheller has now been installed.

Catherine Robertson

Weighing babies at the under-fives clinic

using the same method to weigh the tea crop

Twenty Years On: still “helping Africans to help themselves”

Mbewa Self-help Project

The story of how this mill was achieved, against odds which would have daunted the most enthusiastic of us, is told on Mike’s website, at http://www.maravilha.co.uk/mbewa/cafe.html If you have access to the internet, access the web page, click on “maize mill”, read the story and see the pictures of the construction. A villager donated the land for the mill, another gave their stock of bricks, and the project was born. Everyone, men, women and children of the village worked on the construction, from carrying cement bags, to making and laying bricks. SBAAG’s donation has helped to purchase the sheller, which is increasing the profit from the mill.

Each farmer pays about £4.00 annually for use of the mill, and the profit is expected to reach £60,000 per year. Some of this has, of course, to go to repay the loans generated to start the project. Income thereafter is used for a social welfare fund, to assist AIDS orphans and other vulnerable families in the village, and to start further projects. Now that the sheller has been acquired, the next project for the village is a cafe and craft centre. Coffee and cakes are to be served in gazebos built from traditional materials. This should generate income from tourists and visitors from Blantyre, an hour’s drive away, to the area w h i c h h a s s t u n n i n g scenery.

As a reminder of why Mike is working so hard to help the village, he tells a harrowing tale of how the social welfare fund is being used. It is being prioritised to transport the poorest villagers to hospital in cases of medical emergency, either to Mulanje District Hospital, or in exceptional cases to Blantyre Central Hospital. The decision to direct the funds to this was taken after two deaths due to people being unable to arrange transport, and the news that a child had been born in the bush when a father was trying to cycle his wife to hospital 10 miles away on the back of the Project bicycle. The bicycle was stolen while the baby was being born. The fact that lives have been saved as a direct result of this fund being available brings home how the Project is making a real difference to the people of this small village in Malawi.

With thanks to Catherine Robertson, SBAAG member and Mike Brady, Co-ordinator, Mbewa Self-Help Project

The sheller in operation

NHS Borders is formally twinned with St Francis Hospital in Katete, Zambia. Chris Faldon, who works for the Public Health Department of NHS Borders as a specialist nurse visited in September 2012. He came back with a number of requests for assistance from various area of the hospital. One is to raise enough funds to purchase 36 bicycles for their TB team. SBAAG have provided £1150 for this project and it is hoped that the target will be reached by his next visit later in November 2013.

Life is pretty desperate for many Zambians. Nearly 70% of the country lives in poverty. The average life expectancy is only 51 years - HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria are major killers, and many

patients are co-infected with HIV which makes TB even more likely to be fatal if treatment is poor. In order to ensure patients get their daily medication, check on the health of patients and their families, as well as educate community groups about TB & HIV, a team of volunteers currently walk miles each day to visit each village.

Bicycles will help the community team to get out to more remote rural areas. Bikes can act as taxis by enabling them to bring patients into the hospital when needed. A bike could make all the difference to TB control in a country ravaged by the disease. The right bike to fit the rough terrain and carry passengers costs around £100 to purchase in Zambia and will help

boost the local economy. A little help from you can literally go a long way! It won’t change the world but could make a world of difference to someone.

In Zambia 500 per 100,000 people are infected with TB (the figure for Britain is 12 per 100,000), and 70% of these have HIV in addition. Daily antibiotics for six months will cure the TB, but there are side effects which cause people to stop taking their medication without encouragement from the voluntary community worker.

If you want to know more about this project see the JustGiving page at https://www.justgiving.com/zambiabikes . You can make a donation through SBAAG specifically for the Zambiabikes appeal.

Chris Faldon

Beating TB with a bicycle in Zambia

Where your donations have gone

In addition to those featured, we have given grants to projects in South Africa, Zambia, Malawi, Ethiopia and Kenya this year, giving in total about £11,500. Instead of a list of recipients, this edition of the newsletter includes excerpts from two letters of thanks from grant recipients, which speak most eloquently of what they are trying to do, and how important it is that we continue to help them.

From the Raphael Centre, Makana, Grahamstown, South Africa

http://www.raphaelcentre.co.za

“On behalf of the Raphael Centre, I would like to thank you most sincerely for your donation of £500. As you are aware, the vision of the Raphael Centre is to provide all living in Makana the ability to protect themselves from HIV infection and to enhance the development of those living with HIV through the expansion of self-agency and skills development.

Your donation will be directed to the Orphans and Vulnerable Children Programme. This programme has two components – an Early Childhood Development Project which seeks to support teachers working with children between the ages of two to four years old, and, a Life Skills Programme which seeks to inspire hope and facilitate life skills for children between the ages of seven and 18 years.

Our mission is fighting HIV with love.”Mary Humphreys

Strategy and funding

From the Thandi Friends Project, Grabouw, Elgin Valley, South Africa

http://www.thandifriends.org.uk “The security fence around our early learning centre and creche was installed in the last two weeks.Our great need now is to make the area within the security fence a play area and vegetable garden. We hope to install a climbing frame and swings in part of the area and a vegetable garden in the other area. This garden will hopefully provide fresh vegetables for the children.The Grabouw area of South Africa has some of the highest levels of AIDS with 55% of our community testing positive. The outcome is that we have a high percentage of single parents and some child headed families.We open our centre at 6.00 a.m and close at 6 00 p.m. We give the children a fully nutritional diet, provide clothing and once a month we are visited by the mobile clinic who weigh the children, test their eyes, ears. mobility etc., we DO NOT test for AIDS.Because we are a small charity we have a constant struggle to raise funds for all our projects. Nothing is spent on administration or wages and all contributions are used directly on our projects. All UK volunteers who work with us in South Africa pay their own air fares, accommodation and living expenses.Your help is very much appreciated.”

Many thanks,

For Your Information

The Website

The SBAAG website has details of the Officers and Committee members, our activities and how you can help.

http://onlineborders.org.uk/community/sbaag

There is also more news of projects we support in Africa.

If you know of a project which fits our aims and which you think we could support, please contact SBAAG secretary, Isabel Gordon, on 01573 224753. 7We are happy to consider suggestions.

Annual SubscriptionThe annual subscription of £10 (or £5 concession) is due in November. Please send your subscription, which can be Gift-Aided if appropriate, with a note of your name, address and telephone number and your e-mail address if you have one, to:

Mrs I Gordon,9 Abbey RowKelso TD5 7JF

information on Gift Aid is on the website

Annual General Meeting, 10 November 2013

You are invited to come to this meeting, to hear about the work of SBAAG this year. We have a most interesting and informative speaker in Dr Chris Jary, who has come to live in the Borders following many years working in Uganda

You will not be pressured into joining the committee, or volunteering for anything if you do not want to, but we always welcome fresh ideas and willing workers to the committee.

Scottish Borders Africa Aids Group Scottish Charity Number SC 032774

Annual General MeetingSunday 10 November 2013 at 2.30 - 4.00 pm.

The Chaplaincy Centre, Borders General Hospital

Speaker: Dr Chris JaryDr Jary spent several years working on an AIDS project in Uganda, before coming to Berwick as a GP. He has recently retired from this post, and is an active member of SBAAG

Refreshments, followed by:

AGM Agenda1. Apologies for absence2. Minutes of 2012 AGM and matters arising3. Chairman’s Report4. Financial Report5. Election of Officers and Committee6. Any other competent business

Chairman: Oliver Eade Committee: Robert FraserVice-chairman: Nancy McNicol Morag BrownSecretaries: Isabel Gordon Denise Herbert Catherine Robertson Elise RossBookkeeper: Tim Usher Mig Moore Marlene Davies Moreen Gordon