So this is it, the beginning of our orientation, the intake of new
volunteers consisted of Nanci a Korean American, who is very persistent on the
fact that she is not a Malungo (white person) because she is Korean, and also
very caring and refers to her self as sort of like my mum, 'someone needs to
look after her,' (referring to me) she often says.
And Ashley is a Canadian, she’s my roommate and is SO like me. We share a
love for the performing arts, we both have super bubbly personalities and we
both have to (prefer to) eat ice cream with plastic spoons. What are the odds, right!
And me. So the first day we went with long term Hands at Work volunteer to a place called a service centre and were
told the process of hand at work which I will now try to pass onto you so you
have a better picture of what I am involved in;
Mission Statement;
We envision the local Church in Africa effectively
caring for the dying, orphans and widows, and unified in this mission with the
Church outside Africa.
Taken from the website;
Our mission is to, through relationship with the local Church in
Africa, challenge, encourage, develop and support the ministry of
servanthood among those in need in their community through the
replication of the Hands at Work community intervention model.
We believe the biblical mandate to care for the dying,
widows and orphans is not only for the Church in Africa, but also
elsewhere, and Hands at Work will be a prophetic voice to the Churches
outside Africa, challenging them to fulfill their mandate.
What does this look like? Well hands
at work identify a community that is known for as having the poorest of the
poor. Then contact the church leaders and meet with them, inform that it is the
churches biblical mandate to care for the orphan and widows in their community.
Then hands at work local staff spend time in the community meeting those most in
need, and asking around if there is anyone in the community that is already
taking care of people, usually God has already placed someone in the community
that has a heart to help and care for those in need. This person is identified
as the mother Teresa of the community; they know where the need is. And hands
also try to identify a man of peace; who is someone the community really looks
up to and that has a good influence on the community.
And from this process a CBO –
Community based organisation is birthed. From the church people come forward
who are wanting and willing to volunteer their time to care for the people in
their community; they become care workers, they surround the mother Teresa figure
and they care for the vulnerable children and poorest of the
poor in the community. The CBO work with hands at work to identify those most
in need and most communities do home visits; called home based care which
involves visiting patients in the morning, bathing them, prompting them to take
medication, assisting them to get to a clinic, listening to them, loving them and
training family members the patients maybe living with to care for them full time.
Then in the afternoons they visit vulnerable children and at
risk children, sometimes this is hard to identify because it’s not stereotypically
orphans, the children may have both parent but their parents maybe sick or have
no means of income, or they may be with grandparents or aunt and uncles, or they
may be abused. So they identify the OVC – Orphan and vulnerable children in the
community and do home based care in the afternoons once the children have
arrived home from school. In the child visits they go and listen to the
children, assist them with chores – cooking, cleaning, washing and fetching water.
They may play some songs/games and check and help with their homework.
They act like a parent and to be a point of call when the
children are in need. If a child is struggling with school or not going to
school they encourage the children to go and even go into the school to
advocate on behalf of the child. And will offer services when needed like –
social services and police in an abusive situations, and home affairs in regards to
papers if refugees. They are a safe reliable adult in these children’s lives
that they know they can turn to when they are in need.
Hands at work sit down with the CBO and work out a care plan
which is all their hopes and dreams about reaching the community, hands at work tries
to encourage communities to provide 3 essential services – 1.Food, a nutritional
meal each day, 2.Education, helping the home work and advocating for the children
to go to school, helping with school uniforms and 3.Basic health care. And this
involves hands at work finding a partner overseas, usually a church to invest time,
finances and heart into the work of the CBO, so vulnerable children can have hope,
safety and a bright future. They try to aim to feed at least 50 children to
begin with at a feeding point in the community. And they hope that each
community in time will have a care centre, which involves offices, feeding point, Early
Childhood Development education programs and just a safe environment for the
children to come to.
Role of hands at work; one hands at work core values is community
leadership, so hands at work role in all of this is to immobilize, encourage
and support CBO’s in taking care of the poorest of the poor, how does this look
like;
I created this picture to help convey the message of the role of hands at
work, so of the pictures are the property of hands at work and some were taken
from google though, just so you know.
So there are people all around the work that are part of the hands at work
family, we have offices in Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, USA, South Africa
and support from Germany. Global churches, and Christians partner with CBO’s
that Hands at work, work with. People also travel to be a part of hands at work
in Africa, they arrive to the HUB which is in South Africa, and then from
there, they are all in different roles that help support the care of children in
different way. From the HUB there are RSTs; regional support teams whose role
it is to directly support a central support centre called a service centre,
which has local Hands at Work people that directly support the CBOs; usually
this team consists of an administrator, centre coordinator and project
manager. And so the service centre support the CBO, whom are care workers, a project
manager, an administrator and a CBO coordinator and they directly support the
orphans, vulnerable, widows and the sick. And the CBOs are also supported by
the local church.
Hands at work has this kind of model working in South Africa, but in Zambia, Malawi, Dominican Republic of Congo, Zimbabwe, Swaziland and Nigeria.
There is a real sense of servant hood; we have come to serve not be the
change; to be Jesus hands and feet whatever that looks like and 'we are before
we do.’
