Riceviamo questa newsletter dal centro Rainbow di Nzara, Sud Sudan, che coinvolge persone con HIV/AIDS
The Rainbow Community of People living with HIV/AIDS in Nzara County Cordially invites all benefactors, parents, guardians, donors, friends, and well -wishers to share with us a one year journey newsflash.
Ding! Dong! Dang! Soon the whole world will be in allegreria to prepare and celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. We are talking of Christmas being around the corner and full of life we convey our Christmas greetings to you all. Be blest.
Let us take one second to be mindful of our breath in and out and thank the good Lord for the gift of life. For those who lost their breath in this year due to Corona virus, wars, famine, and in any other catastrophe, may they find eternal Peace in God’s embrace.
With God all is possible and the possible for Rainbow this year has been the following;
Rainbow scaled up capacity building for 50 community outreach volunteers, 7 mentor mothers, 7 peer Adherence counsellors, and 7 community outreach supervisors, to provide improved HIV services. The trainings offered to the above mentioned entailed; basic counselling skills, index testing, sample collection for testing for the viral load, and how to retain the clients on treatment, and good health. The mentor mothers mainly were taught to mentor mothers to attend the antenatal services, and give birth from the health facilities to HIV free children. Almost 267 children have been born and none has been declared HIV positive yet.
Rainbow managed to pay school fees to 300 Orphans and vulnerable children in 10 different nursery and primary schools, and in one senior secondary schools. We carried out 3 months full time activities with our 300 sponsored children from February to april before schools opened and one Sartuday in a month after the school opened. The children were taught simple arithematics, counting, reading in English, expresing self through debate, individual and group counselling, sanitation and hygiene, life education skills. It has helped the rainbow children’s school performance to improve.
Since March this year 2021, Rainbow began to offer vocational trainings on economic development to the youth, men, and women living with HIV, motivated by nutritional and psychosocial support. We trained over 100 people mainly young mothers, youth and some men in bakery, we trained over 100 mothers, youth, women, and men on weaving and knitting. Through the vocational trainings many started small enterprises in which they now earn a living leading to self-resilience. Some formed and are working in small groups, others work individually to generate income for home sustainability
Anthonieta, Ervilia, and Sunday formed a group to bake their own bread and each one of them makes an average profit of 10,000 South Sudanese pounds per month. This money is equivalent to 24 USD. They said that this money has enabled them to pay school fees, and purchase for home basic needs. In the villages many young mothers are now making home baked bread for sale. Joyce Minisare specialized in baking donuts. Many people in Nzara now have access to bread for their families. The young people acquired so many skills that they are now practicing in their own homes and families. The People living with HIV are now the suppliers of bread in the county. Those who are not HIV positive have also learnt how to make bread from their relatives, friends who are HIV positive. The making and supplying of bread in the county by the PLHIV has reduced on the stigma and the discrimination they used to get from the society, also their viral load has been suppressed and they are more strong now. They are socializing more with the society.
The young boy in red below is an orphan and was a school dropout. He had come to look for a job as a bread seller. Rainbow instead took him back to school and is sponsoring his education.
We carried out nutrition and psychosocial support to infants born to HIV positive mothers and are lacking milk, also to Children with High viral load. The nutrition program catered even for some adults who are very weak with no strength to cultivate their own foods. We give them a period of time for food supply while encouraging them to start cultivating as they get stronger.
In the demonstration farm, we got a lot of moringa that we processed and gave the moringa powder to clients to boast up the body immunity. We got 5 bags of groundnuts, soya beans, sweat potatos, maize, matooke, and we added another acre of pineapples. We bought a grinding machine for the members to help them reduce on the workload and have more time to rest. This has enabled them to relax, reduce on stress and supress the viral load.
As we come to the end of our news for this year, on behalf of all the rainbow beneficiaries and on my own behalf, we would like to appreciate and deeply thank all our donors; the various organisations, individuals and group friends of Comboni Sisters/Rainbow; guardians, relatives, all our superiors and well-wishers for having supported us to these achievements. May God bless and reward you for your kindness and generosity towards the less privileged.
Happy New Year to You all and thanks for reading this Newsletter.
God bless us all
Sr. Winifred Obbo
