In a country where funds for social programmes are often lacking, volunteers find themselves being called on to fill the gap. Of late, however, the demands placed on these individuals have become increasingly burdensome.
Good intentions are running up against the realisation that there is too much to be done, and too little remuneration for people whose volunteer work has become less a part-time occupation than a full-time — albeit nonpaying -‒ career.
”From homecare givers to teachers and even engineers, we have volunteers doing work that is so involved it really constitutes employment. Some type of payment is due,” says Joyce Khumalo, a manager with a group of seamstresses.
With unemployment at high levels, there isn’t a shortage of people to take on volunteer tasks at clinics, construction projects in rural communities and agricultural programmes.
”But sooner or later, a man will have to feed his family. And if a man who is a breadwinner died of Aids, his wife who is a volunteer must give that up to find paying work,” adds Khumalo.
These concerns are echoed by Derek Von Wissell, Director of the National Emergency Response Committee on HIV/Aids (NERCHA) ‒- a body set up by government to coordinate Swaziland’s response to the Aids pandemic. The country currently has the world’s highest HIV prevalence, according to the Joined United Nations Programme on HIV/Aids (UNAIDS) ‒ a rate approaching 40%.
”We need to find ways to give some small stipend to volunteers. So many of the Aids programmes are dependent on volunteers, such as home-based care,” observes Von Wissell.
NERCHA supports community initiatives to address Aids, in the belief that these are more effective than projects imposed by central government or a foreign donor. While this approach may be sound, the programmes rely greatly on volunteers for their success.
The Inhlanyelo Project is a case in point. Over 300 chiefs have set aside fields for cultivation by the people of their area, with harvests benefiting orphans who have lost their parents to Aids. NERCHA and the Ministry of Agriculture provide seeds, tractors and other implements, but labour is entirely voluntary.
Inhlanyelo is rooted in Swazi culture — the notion that members of a community who are unable to support themselves can depend on their traditional leader for assistance.
”There is a Swazi tradition called ‘kuhlehla’, where the people of a chiefdom come to weed the chief’s field, (and) the chief takes care of the orphans at his place. (But) today, there are too many orphans,” says Chief Malunge, who presides over the rural Nyangeni area northeast of the capital, Mbabane.
In the past, Swazi labour unions have condemned this practice, calling it slave labour. But, traditionalists defend the custom.
There are also concerns that volunteers, as well-intentioned as they may be, simply don’t have the skills to help address some of the problems created by Aids. This is particularly true of home-based care — long a key area for volunteerism.
Already, the nursing profession is wary of what they consider amateur providers of healthcare who are improperly trained and equipped.
”Anti-retroviral drugs for HIV patients must be administered exactly, or they will lose their effectiveness. Do volunteers know how to protect themselves against infection from spilt blood? Will they stick to a job when it becomes disagreeable the way a professional will?” asks Agnes Kunene, a nurse in the central town of Manzini.
However, the nursing profession is itself coming under pressure.
”Nurse’s assistants, the orderlies, are not paid overtime, so they knock off work before evening. There is no one to help nurses turn patients, or do other physical tasks at night,” says Thabsile Dlamini, Secretary General of the Swaziland Nursing Association.
Nurses have already engaged in a three-week national strike this year. And, they have pledged to down tools again if orderlies are not adequately paid.
In the face of these dilemmas, organisations such as Swazis for Positive Living are coming up with creative solutions to the problem of remuneration for volunteers. The group was founded by five women who discovered they were HIV-positive ‒ and without any place to go for support.
”As we strove to get Aids information, we became activists, first for ourselves and then for all others who are affected by HIV. We were given money by UNICEF (the UN Children’s Fund) to start a project we wanted to do for Aids orphans,” says Sempiwe Hlope, one of the group’s founders.
The 350 women and 50 men who now comprise the Swazis for Positive Living membership cultivate fields in a venture modeled after cooperatives.
”We sell all the vegetables we harvest, and half the proceeds go to the orphans ‒- 25% of the profits we put back into our business. The final quarter of profits we split among the members,” adds Hlope.
Swazis for Positive Living so impressed one chief that he broke with custom to give the founders some land to help the burgeoning number of Aids orphans in his district. Since time immemorial, only men have been given land by chiefs in Swaziland.