“The money helps, but knowing people really care, even when they’re not sure what they’re dealing with, keeps us trying.”

How to volunteer effectivley for any organisation working with issues of HIV and AIDS

By HELEN ALEXANDER AND ANNE PARSONS

Responding to HIV and AIDS in South Africa

Every day, people all over South Africa struggle to find food, send their children to school and get to work. A growing number of South Africans face the additional fears of HIV infection and AIDS-related illnesses. Will this person stay healthy, will he keep his job? What might happen if someone found out her HIV status was positive?

HIV and AIDS is one of the largest challenges facing South Africa at the moment. Most people are confronted with available resources that cannot sufficiently meet their needs. The number of adults and children who need information, education, health-care and support surpasses what is offered. Your support and help as a volunteer or donor could be vital to the large number of non-profit and community-based organisations that provide essential services to people affected and infected by HIV.

There are a variety of organisations addressing issues around HIV, and a diversity of services on offer, so potential volunteers and donors have a large number of choices to make when deciding how to help. This article provides some guidelines to help you decide how best to get involved.

• Responding to HIV and AIDS in South Africa
• The Options
  • How can you help?
  • What are you able to offer?
  • What kind of commitment can you make?
  • Which organisation do you want to help?
  • What goods and services are needed?
• Volunteering Time: Some more Things to Think About
• Preparing yourself
• Does the Organisation have a structured volunteer programme?
• Training
• Debriefing
• Commitment
• Volunteering Money, Goods and Food
• What you Can Do from Day to Day
  • Living with fear: HIV, AIDS and people’s reactions
  • Making a difference
  • Keep it up!
• Resources: Volunteering
• Resources: HIV and AIDS

The Options

Before making a decision about the best volunteering option for you, you need to understand what options are on the table. While you are weighing up these options, keep the following guidelines in mind:

• You will be most effective and most fulfilled if your skills are meeting the specific needs of the organisation.
• You cannot be an effective volunteer if you overextend yourself in terms of time and commitment.
• HIV is an emotional issue: no matter how you choose to give, you and the people you give to will be affected.

How can you help?

You can offer your assistance to HIV and AIDS (and indeed any) organisation in three main ways. You can:

• Volunteer your time and skills
• Donate money
• Donate goods, including food.

Carefully consider what you are able to offer, how much you can commit and what the needs are in the organisation you want to help. This will help you decide how you want to help.

What are you able to offer?

It may seem absurdly obvious, but it is worthwhile stopping a moment to do a quick audit of the resources and skills that you have available. This allows you to better determine where your help will be most useful.

A friend got involved with an organisation that provided home based care to people ill with AIDS-related illnesses and who lived in a local township. She started off by using her car to help the caregivers carry weekly food donations to all their clients. However, she soon found that her skills as a researcher meant that her time was better utilised in writing proposals for the group and securing them regular food donations from her local branch of a big food store chain.

What kind of commitment can you make?

How much you can offer should be clear in your mind from the start. Think about whether you are offering:

• A once off involvement (e.g. a single donation of money)
• A short term involvement (e.g. participation in a particular, finite project, like building a house)
• An on-going involvement (e.g. volunteering an hour a week for six months or a year).

Which organisation do you want to help?

Most HIV and AIDS organisations address specific, local needs. Find out which organisations are operating in your area and what they do. A good place to start is often your local clinic of the health department. When you have narrowed down the options, contact the organisations you have identified and find out exactly what they do, whether they are looking for volunteers and how they operate.

Many HIV and AIDS organizations do not have explicit ways for people to volunteer their time, often because of potential issues such as loss and death. Sometimes, the programme is too small to accommodate regular volunteer work (as their work is too specific or personal). Find out directly from the organisation you are interested in if it has a volunteer program or whether it prefers a donation.

What goods and services are needed?

HIV and AIDS organisations need a variety of different things, depending on what they do and who they help. Many organisations often lack:

• Money (to pay for a variety of things from furniture, to salaries, medication etc)
• Clothing
• Food
• Transport
• Entertainment and outings for children.

Get in contact with your chosen organisation and find out from them exactly what they need.

Volunteering Time: Some more Things to Think About

Volunteering your time to help a worthy cause is extremely rewarding. But being a volunteer can also be very frustrating and difficult if you and the organisation you are working with have not carefully planned your involvement. Make sure that you are as prepared as possible and that the organisation is able to manage you properly. This will ensure that you are an effective (and personally fulfilled) volunteer,

Preparing yourself

Make sure that you are emotionally and mentally prepared for your involvement. It is very important that you define for yourself the extent and limits of your involvement. Be realistic and think through the implications of your choices.

Always try and ensure that your skills are a good match for the organisation’s need. For example, designing a webpage for a group so that it can network with other organisations and potential funders is very useful - as long as someone has access to a computer, knows how to use the email programme and does not need to update the webpage.

Make sure that you understand what the organisation stands for and what its values are. Be clear with both yourself and any organisation you work with about what is expected of you and what you expect in return.

The realities of HIV and AIDS in South Africa mean that most people who ask for help are already ill or living in circumstances in which it is hard to maintain good health. Many people with AIDS-related conditions do not receive good medical care for a variety of reasons, and often die of a (treatable) disease. You must accept the possibility of death and loss in a family infected and affected by HIV and AIDS. The stigma attached to HIV infection is an additional burden for both those infected with HIV and for people who involve themselves in these issues. Spending time with people usually leads to some form of emotional attachment for both parties. It can be very difficult to cope with other people’s prejudices about persons living with HIV. If you choose to get directly involved, be honest with yourself about your ability to deal with these kinds of emotions.

All this said, in our experience one of the most rewarding things you can do is helping people living with HIV and AIDS - however you choose to involve yourself. People infected and affected by HIV and AIDS need not only your time, but also your support. By getting involved, you take away the loneliness of living with HIV and AIDS and give a person the hope to live.

Does the Organisation have a structured volunteer programme?

Effectively utilising volunteers means a lot of work for an organisation. If the organisation that you want to work with has a structured volunteer programme in place, it means it has likely thought through important issues such as:

• What exactly you can do for the organisation and in what way.
• Who will manage, supervise and help you.
• How to clearly establish boundaries and expectations between the volunteer and the organisation.
• How volunteers are selected to ensure that their skills match the organisation’s needs.
• How to check that volunteers are happy and productive.

A structure helps ensure that you are performing useful tasks for the organisation and that you get the support you need. For example, another friend recently volunteered at an organisation that helps HIV-positive people learn how to live with HIV and AIDS. The organisation gladly welcomed his help, but they do not have structured jobs for volunteers. He spent two weeks helping the secretary photocopy and file documents, but ended up feeling frustrated and useless. He decided that next time he will first find out how the organisation will specifically use his time and skills. Only then will he commit to it, as there will be some guarantee that it is a worthwhile activity for both him and the organisation.

Training

A structured volunteer programme may also include specific training. If you are planning to get involved with the information and education aspects of a programme, this is usually essential.

You can supplement the training you may receive from the organisation by signing up for courses and programmes offered elsewhere. This is especially useful if the organisation you want to work with does not include training as part of its core business. You may, for instance, work with a group that takes children affected by HIV and AIDS on weekend trips and find that you want specific training on the basics of how HIV and AIDS are related, to help the children think through some of the problems they face. The resources at the end of this article include organisations that offer training on an ongoing basis.

Debriefing

As a volunteer, or through your donations, you are important to the lives of the people you help. Most people in South Africa who are affected by HIV infection and AIDS-related conditions are poor and living in situations where they cannot easily access resources. You are valued and can hence become intricately intertwined with the lives of people with whom you interact.

This can be a very hard reality: the same friend who started off using her car to distribute food stopped volunteering her time after one of the women died from AIDS-related conditions. As the only person affiliated with the organisation who had a car, she was called and asked to ferry the woman to hospital (in the city), where the woman waited six hours to see a doctor. Once admitted, the only time her family could afford to see her was when a free lift to the hospital was available. This meant that they only visited when our friend could find the time to drive them from the township to the city and back again. Two weeks later, the woman died alone in hospital.

This can have an emotional impact on you (both positive and negative). You will probably find that after interacting directly with people affected and infected with HIV you will want to talk about it. Having a space provided, in which you can discuss your experiences and your emotions with someone who is trained to help you understand what you are feeling and to help you learn how to cope with sometimes overwhelming situations, is important.

Debriefing sessions can take place one-on-one or can be conducted in a group environment. There can be a formal time set aside to talk with someone in the organisation you work with, or an informal arrangement. If you are not getting what you need, let the organisation know and see if together you can work out a strategy that meets your needs.

Commitment

The last thing you want is for the people you are trying to help to feel rejected and neglected because you didn’t feel like going, were too busy, or forgot. Choose a type and length of involvement that you know is personally feasible.

When working directly with vulnerable people, especially children, it is very important to make a firm commitment and clearly communicate how long your involvement will last. Never commit yourself to more than you can realistically handle. Rather err on the side of caution - you can always increase your involvement later.

Volunteering Money, Goods and Food

Volunteering money, goods and food can be a lot simpler than volunteering your time. Every organisation constantly needs goods and money. Unless you have very specific skills (such as medical, counselling or care-giving skills), many HIV and AIDS organisations prefer this type of kindness. When giving money, food and goods, you will always find an organisation that needs what you have to give. It is still really important, however, to match your donation with an organisation that has a real need for whatever you have to offer. For example, children’s homes always appreciate toys but it is not useful to give complicated board-games to a home that only caters for babies and toddlers.

In addition, each organisation has specific wants and money is useful only when it can be utilized. (Donating money may seem like the easiest option, but smaller organizations in particular do not have the capacity to take on the larger operations often called for by higher levels of funding.) Try to think of any implications that may arise from your donation, for example, if you organise an outing for children from a children’s home, there may be transport requirements that the organisation will struggle to meet.

Ask the organisation in which you are interested if it needs anything. This kind of information is also found in guides such as the “how 2 help” directory, which lists the needs of various organisations in Cape Town.

In particular, the value of food is often underestimated. Food parcels can usually be easily distributed to the people with whom HIV and AIDS organizations work. Providing food may seem like an overly simplistic way of helping infected and affected people cope with HIV and AIDS, but it is one of the most valuable things you can do. A person with HIV who develops AIDS-related infections is usually too sick to work - and someone else in the family will also stop working (or looking for work) in order to care for them. Food parcels often help the entire family of a person ill with AIDS.

Keep in mind, though, that a person with HIV who is not ill with AIDS-related conditions is still healthy. Food donations are then important in sustaining both an individual and a family’s health - but they are not a way of suggesting that people living with HIV are incapable of looking after themselves or their dependants.

What you Can Do from Day to Day

Helping people infected and affected with HIV and AIDS is not only limited to donations of time, money, goods and food to worthy organisations. It is also about how you choose to think about HIV and AIDS.

Living with fear: HIV, AIDS and people’s reactions

The stigma around HIV infection and AIDS-related conditions is still very strong in almost all communities. A person infected with HIV rarely discloses his or status. An HIV-positive person lives with both his/her fear of death from “AIDS” and his/her fear of other people’s reactions.

Being HIV-positive is not only a medical condition but also a social disease. South Africans still tend to believe that being HIV-positive is a death sentence and that it has negative implications about the ‘morals’ of an infected person. HIV prevention education has reached almost all South Africans and yet has not helped destroy these assumptions. There is a general belief that someone who does contract HIV is either a ‘victim’, ’stupid’ or ‘immoral’.

Making a difference

Your attitude is as much a ‘medicine’ as the help you can give to people infected and affected by HIV and AIDS:

• Pity cripples a person’s will
• Judgement leads to resentment and anger

BUT

• Empathy for the person trying to make the best of a situation creates confidence.
• Encouragement gives a person the will to continue living.

The best thing to do is to treat everyone with respect. Many people with HIV are frightened by the potential reactions of people around them. Keep in mind that official infection rates in South Africa are high enough that at least one person you encounter each day is infected or affected by HIV or AIDS.

Keep it up!

We can all actively work against stigma every day. One easy way to do this is by wearing a red ribbon.

Many people are not aware of the extent to which HIV and AIDS has impacted on life in South Africa. This is largely due to the fact that you cannot easily ’see’ it around us. (A person who dies of an AIDS-related disease is usually said to have died of that related-illness and not AIDS - and so his/her HIV-positive status remains hidden.) Talking with our friends and family about our volunteer work and donations makes HIV and AIDS real.

Your ability to help solve the problems of HIV and AIDS in South Africa starts at home. Educate yourself on how to prevent HIV and make sure your friends have the correct information and have thought about the implications of what they know. For example, many people will not use condoms when in a long-term, monogamous relationship. However, have both partners been tested for HIV before they started having unprotected sex? Does each partner trust the other? These are questions that many people take for granted but do not apply to their own relationships.

Resources: Volunteering

Volunteer Southern Africa (VOLSA)
VOLSA’s objective is to build the volunteer movement in Southern Africa, and it specifically focuses on capacity-building, research, facilitation, networking and advocacy.
Contact Person: Bushang Mokganyetsi
Telephone: 012 325 3918/63
Fax: 012 325 2170
E-mail: bushangm@volunteersa.co.za or info@volunteersa.co.za

Volunteer Centre
This Cape Town based NGO, recruits and places volunteers with organisations in the Cape Town area. They run orientation sessions on the third Thursday of every month from 10:00 to 12:00.
Contact Person: Caroline
Address: Somerset Hospital, Nurses Res, 2nd Floor
Telephone: 021 418 1116
Fax: 021 418 3707

Southern African Student Volunteers (SASVO)
This non-profit organisation encourages volunteerism amongst students at tertiary education institutes. The United Nations Volunteer (UNV) programme has given SASVO R3 million to encourage volunteers to help communities in the fight against poverty and HIV and AIDS.
Address: Centre for Human Rights, Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, 0002
Telephone: 012 420 5396/4393
Fax: 012 420 4395
E-mail: sasvo@postino.up.ac.za
Website: www.up.ac.za/chr/sasvo

Giving & Sharing Campaign
If you are looking for help on deciding whether to be a volunteer, or how to manage volunteers and the volunteering process, you can visit the
Telephone: 011 794 1234
Fax: 011 794 8054
Address: PO Box 78512, Sandton, 2146
Website: www.givingandsharing.org.za

Making Volunteering Work
Written by Michele Williams and published by Papillon Press (2001), this book is intended to guide organisations in setting up structured volunteer programmes. It considers relevant legislation and selection, recruitment and management of volunteers. It is available from bookstores countrywide.

National Ploughback Trust
The National Ploughback Trust aims to facilitate and promote the understanding of social giving. The movement encourages people to ploughback resources (money, skills, time) into their communities.
Contact Person: Ms Nthabiseng Matsobane (CEO) or Debbie Senne (Project Administrator)
Telephone: 012 342 8537/8
Fax: 012 342 8368
E-mail: sasvo@postino.up.ac.za
Website: www.up.ac.za/chr/sasvo

Via Africa (”Visionaries in Action - Across Africa”)
The Via Africa promotes volunteerism, offers advice on how you can help and helps match volunteers with organisations needing help.
Contact Person: Nadine Naidoo
Telephone: 011 713 9483
Fax: 011 713 9972
Website: www.viaafrica.org
Email: kinadine@volunteer.co.za

Volunteer Child Network
This is a directory of organisations that recruit, train, manage or deploy volunteers around issues of child abuse. Some of the organisations listed also deal with AIDS orphans.
Telephone: 012 841 2231 or 012 841 2312
Fax: 012 841 4750
Email: rrc@csir.co.za>
Website: www.volunteerchildnetwork.org.za

Resources: HIV and AIDS

New Mexico InfoNet on HIV and AIDS
This website provides simple, one-page summaries on HIV infection and treatment.
Website: www.aidsinfonet.org

AIDS Training, Information and Counselling Centres (ATICC)
ATICC has a presence in most South African cities and large towns. Contact your local ATICC for a comprehensive list of HIV and AIDS organizations in your area. If there is no ATICC in your area, contact the local health centre.

National HIV and AIDS Convention of South Africa (NACOSA)
NACOSA has information on community-based organizations in the Western Cape and some other provinces.
Telephone: 021 423 3277
Email: nataidc@iafrica.com

AIDS Directory
This online database allows you to search for an organisation by type, province, keyword, name or contact person.
Website: www.aidsdirectory.co.za

National AIDS Helpline
The helpline can refer you to organizations in your area that work with people infected and affected by HIV and AIDS.
Telephone: 0800 012 322

National Association of People Living with HIV and AIDS (NAPWA)
NAPWA runs support groups for people living with HIV and AIDS. NAPWA itself often requires assistance in a variety of areas, but it can also provide information on smaller, community-based organizations in need of donations.
Website: www.napwa.org.za
National: napnat@sn.org.za
Johannesburg: 082 233 1137; (email) napwagp@sn.apc.org
East London: 082 233 1135; (email) napec@sn.apc.org
Bloemfontein: 082 233 1136; (email) napwafs@sn.apc.org
Durban: 082 233 1138; (email) napwamp@sn.apc.org
Pietersburg: 082 233 1139; (email) napwanp@sn.apc.org
Cape Town: 082 233 1143; (email) napwawc@sn.apc.org
Tlhabane: 082 233 1141; (email) napwanw@sn.apc.org

Treatment Action Campaign (TAC)
TAC is well known for campaigning for access to HIV antiretroviral medication. However, it also has links to small community-based organizations and itself periodically requires help.
Website: www.tac.org.za
Telephone: (Cape Town national office) 021 788 3507
Email:info@tac.org.za

AIDS Consortium
The Consortium provides a referral database with the details over 1000 HIV and AIDS organizations in South Africa. You can search the online database by organization, province and keyword.
Website: www.aidsconsortium.org.za
Telephone: 011 403 0265
Email: info@aidsconsortium.org.za

Child HIV/AIDS Services
A Directory of Organisations in South Africa that work with children
Website: www.childaidsservices.org