Cedric Mayson Spirit Level The Salvation Army is full of red tape. Being responsible for the lives and money of other people it has systems and procedures to be followed like any huge bureaucratic organisation. But Major Lena Jwili ignored it all when a young girl arrived at her home behind Baragwanath taxi rank in Soweto with a two-day-old baby needing care: the child was HIV positive. Lena took the child in. Her leaders backed her, and that began the major work of the Salvation Army in caring for children with Aids, and linking them to other families. “ChiIdren don’t belong in institutions: they belong in a home,” she told last week’s strategy planning workshop for HIV/Aids support in the religious sector.
Thea Jarvis had the same idea but a different approach. Weighed down by the thought of thousands of children in orphanages, and having five of her own, she decided to enlarge her family and some of the eight they have adopted are HIV positive. “Fears are not needed,” she says. “Action is needed. Children need champions, and when they are adored they become adorable.” More than 100 other families have joined her group in recent years and adopted children. “It’s not a job for sissies,” she said. One of her beloved children lay cold and still in the mortuary even as she spoke to us. The Muslim Aids Programme links, through the Islamic Medical Council,with projects in all parts of the country. Diminutive Suraiya Nawab poured out her experience in this work which is focused mainly on counselling and support structures for people with Aids and their families. Like Jwili, she finds that most affected young women had no understanding person to talk to. It’s a call to a specialised ministry. Christo Greyling of Stellenbosch, towering over Nawab, is a giant of a man with a voice to drown Boeings and a laugh to blow them into the air again. When he and his wife, Liesel, discovered he was HIV positive they decided to spend the rest of their time spreading hope to young people about Aids, and Old Mutual backed them. Countless programmes with youth groups all over the country have taught this couple many skills in engaging people in the struggle against Aids, at many levels. Greyling held a recent workshop, hosted by the National Religious Association for Social Development (NRASD) with the South African National Aids Council, spellbound with a slide programme that summarised their experience, and turned it into a model for faith communities to apply in their own circumstances nationwide. With more than 60 religious activists present from every major faith community the workshop was a hotbed of action and experience, and from the other side came the government input. Minister of Welfare and Population Development Zola Skweyiya opened proceedings, supported by Director Maria Mabetoa and Dr Bongani Khumalo of the deputy president’s office, with a major factual contribution from Dr Nono Simelela, Director in the Department of Health. There was plenty of hard criticism and some ruffled feathers, but a growing sense of partnership: both faith communities and the government are clearly committed to solving the HIV/Aids pandemic, and both have problems. They need one another at every level: grappling with the global financial issues; pursuing the medical answers; providing the vast social and care services needed for a decimated population both rural and urban; tackling poverty; solving the internal inadequacies within the civil service; challenging the media; changing the sexual habits of society; and stirring the religious communities into action. Most clergy are scared stiff of talking about sex, said Johannesburg Anglican social officer Reverend Doug Torr, yet the clergy are a crucial factor in mobilising the community on the HIV/Aids issue. Christnet and other groups are sending youth teams out nationwide – but how can clergy, youth, and congregations be trained? We train trainers to train others quickly or we are dead.
Sheik Achmed Sadiq of the Muslim Judicial Council had the whole group behind him – Jews, Catholics, Protestants, Pentecostals, Buddhists, Bahais, Hindus and African independent churches – when he spoke of the underlying moral values which had to be recovered. But how do you do that? And – with all the talk of programmes for women and youth – how do you tackle the men of South Africa, whose sexual pressures are hardly ever mentioned?
And what support can be given to the people of 60 and 70 who will be caring for the nation’s children as many of the working-age population die out in the next few years? Ideas flowed in. A small group was given two months to summarise the proceedings, consult with faith communities, the government and funders and turn the inputs into outcomes.
Renier Koegelenberg of NRASD set out the philosophy behind it. NRASD is a low-profile interfaith group which seeks to focus on specific issues one at a time. This time it was Aids. Those who want to be kept in touch with developments can contact the facilitators Noluthando or Lulama at Chronicle Communications on (011) 880 0220 or e-mail info@chronicle>.co.za