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Care 4 Soweto is a partnership of Suncoast Hospice with the Foundation for Hospices in Sub-Saharan Africa supporting the important work of the Hospice Association of the Witwatersrand and Soweto Hospice.

Our purpose is simple – To provide care, aid and support to the Soweto community - ravaged by endemic disease. The people of Soweto and surrounding Jo-burg, are making valiant strides in caring for those patients and their families who are battling terminal illness, and also helping with some of the most basic of needs: food, housing, and care for the children.

Please consider participating in this effort and donate to the important work of the Soweto Hospice and their many programs for the people of Soweto. It only takes a minute.

Follow this blog, and follow our ongoing commitment to our friends in Soweto. Please pass along the address for this site, to your friends and family as well. Thank you for your support, and we encourage you join our partnership.

Keep it small

written by Dr. Stacy Orloff

It’s easy to get overwhelmed… every where I look I see ‘big’.  Overwhelming poverty; too full hospital beds (sometimes with two children in one bed); a one room shack with no electricity or running water; a granny caring for her four year old grandson; an AIDS pandemic that has created thousands of orphaned children.

Then, I see small.  A pediatrician who knew there was a better way to care for children.  She began as a medical student picketing in front of the hospital advocating for ARVs for children.  She continued her advocacy and after much work now runs a very large and successful pediatric palliative care program. Her next step- moving to Cape Town to establish an academic pediatric palliative care program to teach pediatricians across South Africa.  I also saw a nurse who felt called to do something different with her life and started caring for one person infected with HIV who now can proudly ‘show off’ the program she started; a hospice program for HIV positive children. This residential program cares for 240 orphaned HIV + children, allowing them to live there until adulthood.  I also saw hospice nursing sisters and community care workers who, every day, visit their patients, giving them food, medicine, and love.  Their visits do more than just provide food and medicine.  I have personally seen hospice patients regain their sense of hope and feeling of worth because of the love given to them; equally I have seen the nursing sister and community care worker ‘filled up’ again because of the love given to them by their patient.

So, what have I learned?  Not to focus on the big- I can’t make the whole problem go away.  I can make a piece of it better.  So, for my remaining days here I am committed to keeping it small.  I can do that.

Stacy 

What a team!

We have such a great team of professionals making this trip. Each person comes with a specific expertise that will be shared with the Soweto Hospice staff. We, in turn, expect to learn many things from them. We're told by previous travellers that the Soweto clinical staff are exceptional in their ability to serve patients even though they lack the basic supplies that we take for granted. It makes me feel great to know that when we arrive we will be bringing suitcases full of basic medical supplies that will make their jobs easier and will bring comfort to their patients.

Today I went out and bought a 2lb. bag of Dumdums (remember those?) for the children. When I look at the faces of those children on the home page of this website, I know that I can do more.

Thank you so much, family and friends who contributed to this trip in dollars and hugs. Your love and support are deeply felt.
Roxie

We're getting ready

Pat’s Pals are going to Africa

Our exchange group is revving up for next month’s trip to Soweto, South Africa. We are getting things in order and stuffing our bags with some much needed resources there – medications and medical supplies and costume jewelry to be sold at their thrift stores –along with some soft and lovable dolls that are sure to bring smiles to the children of Soweto.

Pat’s Pals, a unique collection of colorful yarn dolls, are the creations of Pat Sargent, a registered nurse of Suncoast Hospice who comes from a long line of knitters in her family. Her husband helps cut the dolls’ hair. They work on them after dinner at home. Each one takes four evenings to make. The couple has given them to family members for many years. Now they will be shared many, many miles away.

Please stay tuned to our blog at www.Care4Soweto.org for the latest stories, thoughts, photos and videos posted by our group during the trip. It’s sure to be amazing, so don’t miss all the action.