Home Based Care volunteers are ministering to the most vulnerable in Chilabula.You are enabling them by providing transportation and food to supplement their patient’s most basic needs.

WOW recently visited the community of Chilabula and had the privilege of meeting Deorphesler, a 35 year old widow. Deorphesler’s husband used to be a home based care patient until he passed away last year, leaving her with 3 children to raise on her own. Deorphesler has begun to make reed mats because reeds are available nearby. She walks to the stream to cut reeds and then carries them back to her home. She splits the reeds and slowly weaves each reed together until a mat is made.It is labour intensive. She can only make 4 mats in a week selling each mat for 6,000 ZMK which means if she is able to sell all 4 mats she will earn the equivalent of $5.40 CAD/week, less than a dollar a day.

This income makes it next to impossible for Deorphesler to feed her family let alone buy uniforms and school supplies so her children can attend school. She knows that education is essential to ensure that her children will not follow in her footsteps.

WOW donors like you who are supporting the Chilabula community make it possible for Deorphesler’s children to attend school and also receive a balanced nutritious meal of maize, vegetables and meat, fish or beans.

Martha, a Home Based Care (HBC) worker visits Deorphesler and her family twice each week. She talks with the children to ensure they are going to school and assesses their health and other needs to ensure that their most basic needs are being met.

Please pray for the home based care workers of Chilabula. Because this is a rural community the homes of patients and children are found a long distance from each other. Because not all the home based care workers have bikes, many have to walk very far. These volunteers are truly heroes, giving of themselves for this service. They are working hard also to raise pigs, goats and grow maize, beans and ground nuts. The farming will help to supplement the orphaned and vulnerable children's (OVC's) feeding program and eventually as time goes on the pig’s and goat’s offspring can be sold to help give some small incentives for the home based care workers.

As of now, a small building is being started that will serve as an office and meeting place for HBC volunteers. This office is located right in Chilabula close to the maize field and other gardens as well as the animal husbandry projects. The office can then be used to safely store the tools needed for these projects.

Your regular support teaches the community how to plan for and invest in the future. Because of you, seeds of hope for the future are being planted in Chilabula.

Obed was once a strong and contributing member of the Chilabula community.  Over the past few years his health has been declining to the point of being forced to leave his job.  Now he is suffering from painful and swollen legs, feet, arms and fingers.  Simple tasks like walking or picking something up is proving to be more than he can bare.  Obed would like to seek medical attention but transport to the clinic and basic clinic costs are more than he can afford. 

Thanks to WOW Obed receives regular visits from Kenneth, a home based care (HBC) volunteer.  At each visit Kenneth carefully records Obed’s symptoms and later reports them to the HBC office nurse.  The nurse prescribes basic medicines to help relieve Obed’s pain which is delivered to him along with food supplies.  Kenneth encourages Obed to take his medicine regularly; he prays with him and provides consistent companionship.  Without Kenneth, Obed would have lost hope but thanks to donors like you, Obed can know peace and is giving praise to God.

At the age of 28 most people in North America are embarking on the best years of their lives but for many in the Chilabula community, looking forward even a week is impossible.  For many, they simply do not know if they will be alive tomorrow.

Catherine is a 28 year old widow.  Her husband died of HIV/AIDS four years ago and now she too is suffering from AIDS.  Catherine thanks God daily for her three year old daughter Mercy, the joy of her life.  Mercy has been tested three times for HIV and each time the results have been negative.  Mercy’s life has been spared but for how long?

Catherine makes a meager wage from making and selling reed mats.  Each morning she goes down to the nearby stream to gather reeds but once the mats are made, Catherine lacks the funds to transport them to the city market which is more than 27 kms away.  When she has the strength she can make the journey by foot but it is too much for little Mercy who must stay at home alone.

Because of WOW funding, Catherine is given regular food parcels for herself and Mercy.  The parcels contain roller meal, salt, sugar, cooking oil and soap and when available there are also multivitamins.  These food parcels can mean the difference between life and death to someone taking ARV’s since the side effects of taking this medicine without food is enough to make a patient stop their regiment.

Catherine is regaining her health and is able to use a bike supplied by WOW to get both herself and her daughter to the market regularly.  Selling these mats will not be enough to provide a stable income for Catherine and Mercy but hopefully as WOW funding for Chilabula increases there will be enough money to help teach new income generating activities such as sewing, soap making and baking to many widows like Catherine.  Hopefully one day you will be reading the story of how Catherine came to be a leader in her community, modeling to other young widows that there is hope for tomorrow.

Thanks to WOW partners, the community of Chilabula has recently been able to increase their food supplement packs to 60 families in need as well as the 13 volunteers who give of their time to visit these patients on a regular basis. 

Each family received 25 kgs of mealie meal (a grain product made of corn and is a food staple in Zambia), beans, sugar, cooking oil, salt and soap.  This food package is an immense help to patients on ARVs, the medication prescribed to help prolong the life of HIV/AIDS patients.  Since this medication is required to be taken with food, if patients do not have food, the medicine can cause serious side effects and make patients very ill.

WOW partners have also set up a drug program dedicated solely to the Chilabula community.  Two nurses are able to distribute from the basic medicines and medical supplies purchased by WOW to help relieve various symptoms found in the community such as diarrhea, fever, infection, etc.  The nurses receive reports of patient’s symptoms from the volunteer home based care workers each week, and then in turn issues the necessary drugs and possibly referrals to clinics and hospitals.  The home based care workers then deliver the needed medicines and food parcels to patients as well as help with transport of critically ill patients to clinics and hospitals where necessary.  As you can see this incredible system allows two nurses to tend to hundreds of patients each week.

Over the next couple months, new training sessions will be held to teach home based care workers basic nursing care and record keeping skills.  Once the training is complete, each home based care worker will receive a new uniform and a certificate.  Session one has taken place on January 30, 2008 with the next two sessions to be held over the next few months.

Praise God for all that is happening in Chilabula!  Thank you!

The Chilabula project started in May 2007. It started with a total membership of ten volunteers and two nurses. After two months four of the volunteers had to stop. And in November 2007 we recruited five more volunteers; two females, and three males. Currently the project has two nurses, a coordinator, and nine volunteers, which comes to twelve.

I hereby wish to welcome and appreciate the coming of WOW into the Chilabula area because of the support and care they are offering to our clients/patients in the community. The support offered is supplementing a lot  more especially to people living with HIV/AIDS, TB patients, the chronically ill, and widow headed house holds who are HIV+ and are looking after orphans.  Previously we had cases where our clients had to take ARV’s and TB drugs without food; which is harmful to one’s health.

In addition I would like to appreciate WOW for providing us with two bicycles and phone which the coordinator is using at the moment. The phone and bicycles are helping in the following:

1) Transport/communication between the coordinator, team leaders, and volunteers.

2) Ferrying patients to and from the hospital.

3) Easy communication between the main project, Mutende H.B.C, and Chilabula H.B.C.

4) Team field work supervision etc.,

I am therefore looking forward to the expansion of the project to include, OVC care, a feeding program, a preschool, and widow care. In conclusion I wish to thank you for the coming of WOW to Chilabula community and for partnering with us.