Thursday, June 17, 2010

Excitement in South Africa




I’d like to share greetings from our South African colleagues! They say thank you to Suncoast Hospice for hosting Jacqui Kaye and Ritta Khunga from the Hospice Association of the Witwatersrand this past April. Jacqui shares that all Hospice Wits sites have a bulletin board with pictures from Jacqui and Ritta’s trip here and examples of our partnership. This way all of their staff can learn more about us and our wonderful partnership.

Our sister hospice also want to share their country’s excitement about hosting the World Cup Soccer. Those of us who have traveled to our sister hospice in 2007 and 2009 saw the soccer stadiums being built. Hospice Wits has used some team supports to support the World Cup excitement. Attached are two pictures- one of a street scene of celebrants and the other some of Hospice Wits staff dressed in their team’s (Bafana Bafana) colors.

Many foreign dignitaries have visited Johannesburg and other South African cities because of the soccer tournament. I’m very proud to share that Dr. Jill Biden, wife of our vice president, visited Hospice Wit’s Mapetla daycare center. Mapetla provides care to children who are HIV positive, have a parent HIV positive, or are orphaned because of HIV. You can imagine the amount of security work that went into arranging this visit. I hope to have some pictures soon to share with you about that visit.

As Jacqui said in her email, “Our country is looking so fantastic and creative and colourful at the moment – the excitement is palpable…..!!”
Stacy Orloff