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Mission to South-Africa - July & August 2009
Written by Ryan Jepson
Sunday, 05 July 2009 01:30
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Page 1 of 3 This summer Comrads Fellow Jeroen Masson will travel to South Africa, where he'll spend several weeks working with our partner MATA, one of our collaborating organizations in South-Africa, on the further development of a joint cooperation project. The purpose of the mission is to support the Identification and Formulation stage as part of our role in providing technical assistance and supporting capacity building. Specifically, the two sides will work towards developing an appropriate framework to support the next steps of planning and implementation of a coordinated locally-owned and managed intervention in the field. The Mission brief will be published soon. Our policy guidelines for providing technical assistance and aid are being developed and will be published here in due course.
Tuesday, 11 August 2009Chap! My time is, once again, very limited, but I will try to give you all an impression of what I have been doing the last couple of days. Last Tuesday and Wednesday I spent in the MATA (Mpumalamga HIV/AIDS and TB Association) offices reading and getting a general feel of what they do. Msanyana (the 'head' of MATA) has taken me into his house and his wife and two children have been extraordinarily welcoming. On Thursday we went to a place called 'Kwaggafontein', where I participated in the work the Home Based Care Centres, represented by MATA, do and attended a function/celebration of the Tembisile HBCs. These guys (and girls) love to sing! On Friday we went to a place called Nelspruit, where MATA has a satelite office. I also got my first experience of SA bureaucracy: very impressive, slow and bureaucratic. :) And as ever having a network and being well-connected works. On Saturday we attended a coming of age ceremony, which is traditionally done by every boy between the age of 15 and 22, and which involves getting circumsised, living on a mountain for two months and getting a lot of presents. After that I saw a cow being slaughtered and prepared for a traditional braai (bbq). At night Msa and I went out. The beer is cheap and these guys know how to party. :) On Sunday we celebrated the National Women's Day with, you'll never guess, more beer and a braai and on Monday (a public holiday) we went to a tavern in Belfast - which involves pool and, yes, more beer.
Today I will go and observe what the HBCs do most: taking care of the sick in their own home. Once again a very interesting day...
Hugs, From Witbank,
Jeroen
8/11/2009 08:24AM |
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| Last Updated ( Tuesday, 22 December 2009 00:31 ) |
