UNDERSTANDING the vital importance of treatment for chronic health conditions, Amangwe Village has been actively involved in facilitating communication among affected communities.
In 2016 Amangwe Village entered into a partnership with Zoe for Life and the US Embassy to run training programmes equipping community volunteers with the tools to address the needs of children suffering from chronic diseases.
‘Adults in our patient support groups expressed their concerns to communicate with their children regarding the health status of their children,’ said Amangwe Village Manager, Erna Steynberg.
‘Children do not understand why they or their parents need to take treatment for their respective diseases and parents, on the other hand, did not know how to communicate this to their children.’
Amangwe’s Kidz Alive programme is specifically designed to address these questions and many other concerns in a child friendly and age appropriate manner.
The training programme helped community volunteers to start support groups for children, using material especially designed for this purpose.
‘Last year we piloted the programme in two areas where we have active patient support groups with jump-start funding from Pyrotek Engineering Materials.’
Seven volunteers operate in these areas and, after successful community interventions, these volunteers each started with a group of 10 children under the age of 12.
‘The impact and success of the first groups were so overwhelming that we decided to continue with a second group of children.’
Parents started asking for not only their sick children to attend the groups, but also all the other children in the family.
‘This way the healthy children could start to understand their sick sibling, as well as the treatment and potential side-effects.’
Community volunteers have now started their second groups and the programme is supported by clinics in the area, with clinic staff referring children and parents in need of this support.
The extension of this critical programme was made possible through funding from the Zululand Chamber of Business Foundation.
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