Home Based Care

Our Home-Based Care program started at the end of 2003, in Olievenhoutbosch. Olievenhoutbosch is half informal settlement and half government-built housing, and contains 40,000 people. The mission of Home-Based Care is “to glorify God by caring for those in our community (Olievenhoutbosch) who suffer from TB, HIV/AIDS and cancer, and for vulnerable children, supporting them spiritually, emotionally and physically, and loving them, accepting them and giving them hope in God.”
We are following a successful model developed by the Masoyi project based in White River, Mpumalanga. This program empowers the community to care, finding those who are already caring for the sick or who are passionate about doing so, and providing them with the skills, support and resources they need to care well.
Our Community Health Workers support those who are infected with TB and/or HIV and the affected families by addressing issues such as nutrition and accessing services such as grants and medical care, including ARVs. They listen to, pray for and encourage these individual and families. Friendship and love can make a huge difference in those infected and affected by these diseases that have much stigma and shame attached to them. This is one of the main goals of the program: to establish close relationships between Community Health Worker and “patient” and among members of the community and other service providers, forming a network of support.