SLF home > july 2007 grassroots > supporting the grassroots in Africa

supporting SLF's programmes in Africa

The Stephen Lewis Foundation currently funds more than 100 grassroots initiatives in 14 countries across sub-Saharan Africa. These are just a few examples:

Botswana

Maru-a-Pula is an exceptional secondary school that has extended its scholarship opportunities to AIDS orphans with the aptitude to become future leaders. Students spend several hours each week comforting the sick, teaching primary classes in neighbouring villages, feeding the destitute and doing HIV/AIDS education.

Ethiopia

Developing the Family Together (DFT) helps more than 150 women affected by and infected with HIV to start small businesses and generate a stable income. DFT also works with local iddirs (burial societies), churches and mosques to run prevention, care and support activities for people living with HIV and AIDS (PLWHAs), grandmothers and orphans.

Lesotho

Mothers2mothers (m2m) uses education and community leadership to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV/AIDS during pregnancy. m2m selects, trains and pays ‘mentor mothers’ to serve as role models, reduce stigma and encourage other HIV+ women in the community to live positively.

Mozambique

Mozambican Treatment Access Movement (MAT RAM) uses a gender and rights-based approach to advocate for greater access to treatment for PLWHAs. Using educational materials in local languages and non-print media, it helps PLWHAs make informed decisions about treatment and demand access to life-saving antiretroviral drugs.

South Africa

As part of Hillcrest AIDS Centre Trust’s care programme, nurses and volunteer caregivers promote voluntary counselling and testing (VCT), and provide palliative care, training and incentives such as food, equipment, and uniforms for caregivers. Hillcrest also maintains a funeral fund so that impoverished clients may be buried with dignity.

Swaziland

Originally founded to train nurses to deal with the impact of HIV/AIDS in Swaziland, The AIDS Information and Support Centre (TASC) has since grown to include VCT, HIV/AIDS education and outreach, home-based care, support groups for grandmothers, children and people living with HIV and AIDS in rural communities.

Tanzania

Following the 2006 Grandmothers’ Gathering, the three MKUKI delegates conducted house visits to identify the needs of grandmothers in their district. They now supply grandmothers with food, mattresses, bed sheets, blankets, clothing, shelter, skills training and health care, and provide educational support to 133 children.

Zambia

Kara Counselling’s Ranchod Hospice provides in-patient palliative care for the chronically ill and houses a daycare and the Busy Bees grandmothers support group. Ranchod's home-based care workers also visit the sick in rural areas, making it possible to reach bedridden patients who would otherwise not receive care.

Across Borders

The Girl Child Education Fund, run by the International Council of Nurses, covers the costs of primary and secondary schooling for the children of nurses who have died of AIDS. The fund provides tuition fees, uniforms and books to 40 girls under the age of 18 in four African countries.

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