HBC and children

Most of our home based care (HBC) clients are raising children. Whether the children are their own, or grandchildren, or another family member’s children who are living in the house, these children are directly affected if one or more of the adults in the household is living with HIV. If the children themselves are HIV-positive then the situation becomes more complicated.

What is the best way to support these children? They have to deal with things at home changing if their caregiver becomes unemployed or cannot get a job. Often they have the primary responsibility of looking after sick parents. They can’t always understand what it means to live with HIV and why they have to do things differently to their friends.

Jogbeth, our HBC Coordinator, explains, “Our support group has been geared towards our adult clients who are living with HIV. But we are coming to see that it’s also necessary to do something for the children. Whether they are HIV-positive themselves, or they know the HIV status of their parents or caregivers, they also need a platform to express themselves and talk about the issues and challenges they face. Of course they do this one-on-one when our HBC volunteers visit them at home, but there are also benefits to bringing them together so that they can learn from and encourage each other.”

“The first step is to make the children comfortable and for the HBC volunteers to build a relationship with them so they are open and feel ‘safe’ talking about things that concern them. Often the parents or caregivers have to realize how their children are affected by what happens to them, and that their children’s needs must also be addressed. This could be helping them understand what it means for them or their parent/caregiver to be HIV positive, educating them on how to protect themselves and others, or just encouraging them to talk about anything that is bothering them.”

“In one of our HBC households a grandmother is raising six of her grandchildren and the eldest two are HIV-positive. In another, young HIV-positive parents are waiting for their daughter to be tested at 18 months to confirm her HIV status. In yet another, an HIV-positive girl is being raised by her aunt and grandmother after her mother died from AIDS.”

Volunteers with clients and children in the HBC program

“We’re working on ideas for making the support group a more conducive atmosphere for having the children attend and contribute. A couple of our clients bring their children sometimes, we want to make the children welcome on a regular basis and let them feel that they can contribute and encourage each other.”

Team time

We’re excited to have some young people from Britain here to work with our church, particularly at the After School Program (ASP). Emma B arrived last week and has come through SIM UK for two months in Namibia. She is joining up with a team from SIM Scotland who will be here for four weeks. Claire, Jen, Cara and Emma L all attend the same church in Glasgow and were brought together by their interest in missions. They arrived on Monday.

Emma B and Cara teach the children a new song - with actions!

In the mornings the girls are kept busy at Family of Hope Services, an organization that helps orphans and vulnerable children. In the afternoons they have already been a great help at the ASP. A few of our regular volunteers are currently busy with exams before the tertiary mid-year break, and with Lazarus and Colly still in Botswana this has left us a bit short-handed. So Claire, Jen, Cara and the Emmas must be feeling like they have been thrown in the deep end!

Claire helps with Gr 3 & 4 homework

They are helping the children with their homework and remedial work, as well as preparing and running some of the activities with the volunteers. There were plans to have a study camp with the older children next weekend but unfortunately the children haven’t shown much interest and it will probably be cancelled.

Jen hands back corrected remedial worksheets while Emma L helps Gr 1 & 2

They are also joining in with the regular church activities such as Bible studies, prayer meetings and Sunday services. Today they head off with the Youth Group on a weekend camp and will get to experience the Namibian bush up close and personal.

We want them to learn as much as possible so they are all staying with church members and meeting weekly with one of the ladies from the church for language and culture lessons. Hopefully this will give them a greater understanding of Namibia and plenty of information and stories to take back to their family and friends!

My After School Program

My After School Program from McCarthy Uatiraiye Mbangwa

This After School Program is very good. I like it and if I have to leave then I will miss the teachers and my friends. At the After School we play games. When we have homework our teachers help us and they explain what the paper is saying.

When my mother first brought me here last year I was very quiet but now I’m in Grade 6 and Teacher Lazarus says that I talk too much.

My best friends at the After School Program are Jordan, Tjiveze and Wilfred. We play together and make other children naughty. When this happens we have to go to Teacher Tangee and tell him what happened, and then say sorry.

At the After School Program we must behave, if you want to go and drink water you must ask for permission. If you come late then you should apologise. When we go home we clean up our class and close the windows. After the activities and games we go to assembly, we pray and then we can go home.

Face the Nation Part 2

I flew to Gaborone on 8 June to join the last day of the Face the Nation (FTN) training and to attend the commissioning service for the volunteers on the evening of 9 June.

This year there were 160 volunteers involved, from 60 different churches. As well as Botswana and our guys from Namibia, volunteers from Zambia are attending for the third year (and FTN has now been started in Zambia).

Lazarus and Colly are really appreciating and enthusiastic about the training and say they have learned a lot. They have not only covered the curriculum they will be teaching but also topics such as: counselling, apologetics, ethics, other religions (traditional African religions, new age and humanism), spiritual warfare, an overview of the Old and New Testaments, and relationships and marriage.

FTN is an HIV prevention program that teaches abstinence and shares the Gospel. But through the training, as you can see from the topics covered, the volunteers are really grown and encouraged as believers and equipped with valuable life skills.

...and making new friends

Everyone at FTN was very welcoming and mentioned that Lazarus and Colly have been an asset to the program.

Face the Nation

I arrived in time for lunch on Tuesday (great timing!) and that was followed by “group time”. The volunteers divided into groups according to the regions where the schools they’re assigned to are located. They worked on a final discussion about the curriculum and the last instructions from the regional facilitators. At the same time the Rally teams were practising and I watched their puppet and drama rehearsals. (The two Rally teams will visit all the schools and reinforce the message of the curriculum through dance, drama, puppetry and singing.)

Puppet rehearsal

I then headed home with Gail Wingreen, the Training Coordinator, who had generously invited me to stay with her and her family. We had dinner that night with Lazarus and Colly, as well as Pastor Modise Mokgwathise, FTN Director, and his wife. We were able to talk about Lazarus’s and Colly’s impressions of the training and their ideas, as well as getting to know the Wingreens and Mokgwathises better. But it did seem that Lazarus and Colly were more interested in discussing with Moruti (Pastor) Modise the topic he had been presenting, God’s Design for Marriage!

The next morning I overslept – forgot that I’d left my cellphone on Namibia time, so my alarm went off an hour later than it should have (Botswana is currently an hour ahead of Namibia). Miraculously though, I was all ready to go in half an hour – still don’t know how that happened! I sat in on the last morning of training, enjoying the energetic praise and worship time, and Moruti Modise even roped me in to answer some of the questions. At lunch time one of the girls in Colly’s group was celebrating her birthday and in addition to the hearty lunch, served us with cake, soft drinks and snacks.

Colly's group

Then everyone was busy cleaning and setting up for the evening’s service. I met up with a Australian volunteer who had just come over to work with Flying Mission and we went out for coffee and a chat. Afterwards there was time for a quick change before heading back to the Open Baptist Church for the commissioning service.

Honoured Guests

The service was a great send-off to the volunteers – it marks the half-way point of their time with FTN. After 5 weeks of training comes the practical part where the volunteers are placed at senior secondary schools for 5 weeks to teach the curriculum. FTN has placed teams of volunteers at all 29 Government senior secondary schools across Botswana. Through the guidance and counselling lessons they will teach every student in those schools about HIV-AIDS, STIs, abstinence and God’s plan for their lives. They will also link with Scripture Union and abstinence clubs at the schools and build relationships with the students.

The patron of FTN is His Excellency Sir Ketumile Masire, a former President of Botswana and Chancellor of the University of Botswana. It was an honour to have him attend the service and address the volunteers in a humorous way that challenged all of us to do what we can in the fight against HIV and AIDS. (For me it was also a bit intimidating to be introduced directly after him when they were welcoming the special guests to the service!) Sir Masire expressed his pleasure that people from Namibia were involved in this year’s training and his desire that this program would spread to Namibia and the Southern African region.

Lazarus singing in the choir for the service

It was a late evening as, after a tea for the ‘dignitaries’ (ha ha, me included!), I made some plans with Lazarus and Colly for the next day and then helped with the clean-up.

Future Plans

On Thursday morning Gail showed me around the FTN premises and then Lazarus, Colly and I went out for breakfast and talked more about how we could use the FTN program in Namibia.

Lazarus' group

After that, it was time for Lazarus and Colly to pack up and get ready to travel to their schools – Lazarus has been placed in a town called Molepolole and Colly in Good Hope. Colly has especially asked for prayer because there is a lot of witchcraft in the community in which he will work.

Lazarus, Gail and Colly

On the way to the airport Gail stopped by the church, which was the base for the training, and tried to make sure that all the last minute details were taken care of. We also visited friends at the Flying Mission and talked to them about their visit to Windhoek in September. Then it was off to the airport – from Gaborone I flew to Johannesburg and from there to Windhoek. This was the evening before the World Cup started, so you can imagine how crazy Joburg airport was!

Sorry that this post is quite long, but a few people have asked for the details of my trip – so I thought I’d share them with all of you!

FTN is now looking at expanding their program to neighbouring countries. Because of our participation this year, they are very interested in hearing about the possibilities of using the program here in Namibia. Please pray for us as we discuss this.

From the After School

I am a 13 year old girl in Grade 8 who has been attending the EBC After School Program in Windhoek, Namibia. The After School Program is at a church, where we go after school so that they can help us with school work and homework we don’t understand.

I have been coming since 2005 and have improved a lot in my school work. At the After School we do other activities such as Bible club, sports and art but the main aim is to improve and learn to work with each other as a team.

As with all other places, the After School has rules such as no chewing gum. Sometimes we are naughty and don’t listen to the teachers, sometimes we are even punished by being sent home but this is so we can learn from our mistakes.

There is also a fee that we should pay in order to have the equipment and materials we need for the After School, but sometimes even with what we pay, there is not enough money. I know we can work together to make the After School Program a success, if you are interested in helping us please contact Miss Julie.

This was all from Vemutiza Hangero, thank you.

Absalom helps Vemutiza with some tricky maths problems.

Living with HIV

Daniel (left), one of our newer Carers in the Home Based Care Program, talks about the challenges faced by people living with HIV and AIDS.




Hilma* is a single mother who lives in an informal settlement area on the outskirts of Windhoek. She has been living with HIV for some time but only recently found out her status. Unemployed and bringing up two children, she often wonders if it wouldn’t be better to give them up for adoption. She explains, “My ten-year-old son is also HIV positive and lives with my family in the north of the country. He is constantly sick and struggles to get proper medical care because where they stay is far from the clinic. His father gives me little assistance so I don’t know how I am supposed to support him or ensure that he remains healthy. My baby girl has so far tested HIV negative (she will have the final test at 18 months old in a few months’ time) but she also gets sick a lot. I did not breastfeed her because that’s what the doctors advised, but I think that is why she is not as strong as other children.”


John*, the father of Hilma’s daughter, is a hardworking man but is also living with HIV and this sometimes makes it difficult for him to find a job. Despite this, he is one of the few people I know who has fully accepted his HIV status and is living positively. He currently has a temporary job as a bus driver from Windhoek to the north of the country, but this means that he is often away from Hilma and their daughter. “I want to work hard to support my daughter,” he says, “so I will take whatever job I can get.”


They tell me that my visits have made a great difference to them – knowing that someone cares and being able to talk about their problems. As we meet we also discuss what the Bible says and spiritual issues. Hilma recently asked for a Bible in her home language and was so happy when we were able to give her one. She’s now texting encouraging Bible verses that she finds to her friends!


Living with HIV requires a great deal of dedication, patience and bravery. My role is to support Hilma and John through the ups and downs and pray that they find the true hope available in Christ Jesus.

* not their real names

Face the Nation

We’re sending two of our After School volunteers, Lazarus and Colly, to get trained in the Face the Nation program in Gaborone, Botswana.

Run by the Open Baptist Church, Face the Nation aims to prevent HIV and AIDS by teaching senior secondary school students about abstinence through Christian principles, using peer mentoring.

Each year Face the Nation trains university students and then places them in schools for five weeks where they teach the program under the Guidance and Counselling Department. Apart from life skills and HIV-AIDS, the training covers leadership, basic counselling, an overview of the Bible, personal evangelism, discipleship, spirituality and ethics.

The volunteers go to schools all over Botswana in teams of three. They’re available for group and one-on-one peer counselling with the students, help with sports and other extracurricular activities, work closely with other supportive groups such as Scripture Union, build relationships with students and, most importantly, peer mentor on the school campuses.

For more information you can go to www.facethenation.org .

This is one of the programs we were introduced to on our networking trip to Flying Mission Botswana last year. It seems like an excellent way to reach young people and prepare them for life after school. We’re excited that we can take part, even if it is with only two volunteers. This is the first time Namibians are included in the training and they will join students from Botswana and Zambia. We are interested to see if the program can be used in Namibian schools and are looking forward to hearing all Lazarus’ and Colly’s experiences.

They leave for Gaborone on 7 May, the training starts on 10 May and their last day of teaching will be 16 July.

It’s a terrific opportunity, but quite an intensive time so please pray for Lazarus and Colly as they go to learn and minister in a different country and culture.