Last Thursday was "take-a-member-of-your-life-group-to-work-day" for Jenn, a member of my small group at Jubilee Community Church. She works at Living Hope, an organization centered in FishHoek. I have been asking her for several weeks if I could see what they do, and now it has finally happened!
First she gave me an overview of the organization in FishHoek, and then we drove to Masi and Oceanview, two nearby townships, to see some of the work there. Masi is more of a Black township. Oceanview is more Colored, formed when the Colored population from another area was relocated to make room for a new all-White neighborhood. One of the great tragedies of this relocation--apart from the basic, appalling injustice that it happened at all--is that the people of Oceanview used to live by the ocean and now they had a beautiful view of the ocean but no access to it. Their fishing skills are useless in this inland community, and drugs and alcohol have become big problems.
Living Hope is involved in these communities through children and youth programs, addiction recovery programs, food-sharing, support groups, teaching the people how to farm, care for HIV patients, and overall education. The work they do is really amazing! (check out livinghope.co.za if you want to find out more)
The importance of education in particular stood out to me. I learned, for example, that HIV positive moms can have HIV negative babies. These babies have natural immunity against the virus, but this lasts only as long as the baby exclusively breastfeeds. If the baby starts eating and drinking other things besides the mom's breastmilk, the baby's resistance to the virus is broken down and the baby often becomes HIV positive. So it is important to teach the moms to exclusively breastfeed, or exclusively feed the baby formula and other food. Of course, things get complicated when other people feed your baby food or when your friend, who is baby-sitting, decides to nurse your hungry baby--we're all family, no? But if they understand the concept, many young children can then be protected from HIV.
However, I was also struck by how education is not always the answer. Another big challenge in these areas is the prevalence of young, single moms. Often, though, ignorance about safe sex and abstinence isn't the problem. Rejection is. Many young girls feel unloved, and they know that at least a baby will love them and provide a reasonably safe outlet for their own love. This underlying relational brokenness must also be addressed for lasting and meaningful change to take place in a community!
First she gave me an overview of the organization in FishHoek, and then we drove to Masi and Oceanview, two nearby townships, to see some of the work there. Masi is more of a Black township. Oceanview is more Colored, formed when the Colored population from another area was relocated to make room for a new all-White neighborhood. One of the great tragedies of this relocation--apart from the basic, appalling injustice that it happened at all--is that the people of Oceanview used to live by the ocean and now they had a beautiful view of the ocean but no access to it. Their fishing skills are useless in this inland community, and drugs and alcohol have become big problems.
Living Hope is involved in these communities through children and youth programs, addiction recovery programs, food-sharing, support groups, teaching the people how to farm, care for HIV patients, and overall education. The work they do is really amazing! (check out livinghope.co.za if you want to find out more)
The importance of education in particular stood out to me. I learned, for example, that HIV positive moms can have HIV negative babies. These babies have natural immunity against the virus, but this lasts only as long as the baby exclusively breastfeeds. If the baby starts eating and drinking other things besides the mom's breastmilk, the baby's resistance to the virus is broken down and the baby often becomes HIV positive. So it is important to teach the moms to exclusively breastfeed, or exclusively feed the baby formula and other food. Of course, things get complicated when other people feed your baby food or when your friend, who is baby-sitting, decides to nurse your hungry baby--we're all family, no? But if they understand the concept, many young children can then be protected from HIV.
However, I was also struck by how education is not always the answer. Another big challenge in these areas is the prevalence of young, single moms. Often, though, ignorance about safe sex and abstinence isn't the problem. Rejection is. Many young girls feel unloved, and they know that at least a baby will love them and provide a reasonably safe outlet for their own love. This underlying relational brokenness must also be addressed for lasting and meaningful change to take place in a community!
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