Tholulwazi Uzivikele spearheading research on Aids Orphans (Study reveals: Emanguzi and Cape Flats)

The Aids-affected children in Dr Lucie Cluver’s movie don’t want to talk about soccer or music. Instead, they want to tell the world about the heartache of losing their parents, the stigma they battle, abuse they endure and the gangs eager to exploit their vulnerability.

The mini-movie, devised and directed entirely by the children, is in itself a measure of how Cluver, of Oxford University, and her team of researchers and field workers have succeeded in gaining the trust of thousands of children affected by the epidemic.

“This movie is completely child-led,” explains Cluver, who is leading the developing world’s first longitudinal study into the impact of Aids on children who care for their parents when they fall ill or have lost their parents to the disease.

“The kids have amazed us – we thought they’d want to talk about soccer and music, and instead they want to deal with major issues.”

Cluver, in a recent commentary in the science journal Nature, marking the 30th anniversary of the first description of Aids, writes how she and her team, working with children and their caregivers from KwaZulu-Natal’s remote Manguzi to the Cape Flats, have become their confidantes.

“As study director, I’d never anticipated that our team’s repeated visits would make us confidantes for these children, whose opportunities to talk about the disease are constrained by stigma,” she says.
“I had also underestimated the extent to which their lives would offer a window on to the complexities of the HIV epidemic.”

Through her Young Carers Project, a ground-breaking study of 6 000 children living in Aids-affected families across South Africa, Cluver and her team are highlighting the hidden impacts of the epidemic on the millions of children caring for ailing parents and relatives.

The project is a collaboration between the universities of Oxford, KwaZulu-Natal, Cape Town and Wits; the Department of Social Development with the support of the departments of Health and Basic Education; the National Action Committee for Children Affected by HIV/Aids; as well as NGOs Cape Town Child Welfare and Tholulwazi.

There is little doubt of the devastating fallout of Aids on the development of children and their psychological health.
New findings from three studies – The Young Carers project; another longitudinal study of 1 050 Aids orphans, children orphaned by other causes and non-orphaned children; and a third illuminating study on TB – reveal just how battle-scarred South Africa’s Aids-affected children are.

Cluver and her fellow researchers had asked children orphaned by Aids whether they were having flashbacks or nightmares, with their research revealing how these children are 117 percent more likely to be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) than those whose parents are alive. More than half were more likely than children orphaned by other causes, including cancer, murder and suicide, to develop PTSD.



Other disturbing results show how children living with Aids-sick caregivers are three times more likely to suffer physical and emotional abuse at the hands of their caregivers, how girls are more likely to engage in sex for school fees, transport to school or food, and how the plight of children caring for their relatives forces them to miss school or drop out entirely.



Cluver told the Saturday Star that there are two core messages arising from her research.



“First, that the challenges are even greater than we had imagined,” she says.



“It’s not only orphaned children, but also children with Aids-affected caregivers who are experiencing massive emotional distress, stigma and poor health.”



The second message is that there is hope, she says.



“There is real commitment on the part of the government and NGOs such as Unicef, the Regional Psychosocial Support Initiative and Save the Children.



“There is also massive commitment and support from communities and from local councillors and traditional leaders, street committees, pastors and local people.”



In her Nature commentary, Cluver notes how, for the past 30 years, the scientific community has fought the war on HIV/Aids on many fronts, including prevention, treatment and finding a cure.



But research, she says, is now revealing a “new and daunting battlefield – the multiple social consequences of Aids on families, especially children”.



With more than 22 million people in sub-Saharan Africa infected with HIV, many of whom are parents, about 70 million children are likely to be enduring the consequences of living with people sick from Aids in the region alone.



In South Africa, Cluver estimates that a staggering 5 to 10 million children have carers who are sick from Aids.



Their courage astonishes her. “Sometimes I’m amazed at their bravery and commitment. How do they do it? I just don’t know. They are incredible kids and they deserve our respect and admiration.”



Just how the deprivation, abuse and devastating loss will affect these children’s ability to become loving, compassionate adults, remains unknown.



“I don’t think we know yet,” Cluver says.



“Ours is the only study to follow Aids-affected children over a long period – and we only have four years of data. What we want to do is to keep speaking to these kids as they become adults and parents themselves. But in many ways the children I have known are even more compassionate than others.



“Their teenage years are spent caring for someone who they love deeply and who they have to watch getting sicker and sicker.



“The kids who we work with have so much love and affection for the sick person, for their brothers and sisters, and for other kids in their situation.”



Using colourful, confidential questionnaires that are peppered with teen symbolism, Cluver and her team have, since 2005, delicately probed the children’s access to school, meals, grants, care duties, whether they face abuse or engage in risky sexual behaviour.



Preliminary findings from their orphan resilience study indicate that children living with Aids-sick caregivers are about three times more likely to report physical or emotional abuse, but not sexual abuse.



“This suggests that what we’re seeing is not in any way malicious caregivers.



“They don’t want to harm the children, but that it may be that the stress associated with HIV/Aids – poverty, stigma, illness, looking after extra orphaned children – just makes it harder and more stressful to be a parent,” Cluver explains.



But what Aids-affected families need is support, not condemnation.



“One important thing is antiretrovirals (ARVs), another is social grants to help support affected families. But it’s also important to have programmes that help the mental health of caregivers and children together, and to help them work as a family to support each other.”



Abuse and extreme poverty drive increased transactional sexual exploitation among Aids-affected young people. Cluver’s results show how girls between the ages of 15 and 24 in otherwise healthy families have an almost 3 percent chance of being exploited in transactional sex – a figure that jumps to 19 percent for those with carers sick from Aids.



Results also show that youngsters affected simultaneously by Aids-orphanhood and having an Aids-sick caregiver are six times more likely to experience transactional sex than in healthy families.



There is a need to address family and poverty risk factors for young people to combat the risk of transactional sex, according to Cluver’s research.



Much more emphasis needs to be placed on the mental health of youngsters, including bereavement support, according to Cluver.



In 2005, she and her team found that Aids-orphaned children scored significantly higher on measures of depression, anxiety and PTSD than non-orphans and children orphaned by other causes.



When they revisited in 2009, the Aids-orphaned children had got worse. “We thought they may be better over time, but we were sadly wrong.”



Orphanhood, she points out, “starts long before a child’s parents die” – typically preceded by a loved one’s sickness, and the resultant bullying, abuse and stigma.



One 10-year-old girl remarks: “My friends laugh at me as my mother is sick and they also gossip about me. I feel not right about that in my life.”



Cluver points out that other studies have shown that HIV-positive parents have much higher levels of depression and anxiety and caregivers of orphans have poorer physical and emotional health than caregivers of other children.



Until now, no studies have examined educational impacts for children in Aids-affected homes, homes where parents are sick from other causes and healthy homes.



“Children in Aids-affected homes have major negative educational impacts… Children in homes where parents are sick from other causes also have negative educational impacts but not to the same extent.”



Cluver’s findings show that 43 percent of children living with a relative or caregiver sick from Aids could not focus on school simply because of anxiety over their condition.



Almost the same percentage of children either missed days to care for their loved ones, or missed days at school.



A 12-year-old boy reveals in his questionnaire how he is consumed with worry about his mother.



“I don’t concentrate at school. I am worried about my mother. She looks as if she is going to die like my father.”



An 11-year-old girl tells how there is no food in her home to take to school.



“Since my mother is sick, I don’t bring nothing at school. I eat nothing. I just drink water during the lunch break.”



Very little, too, is known about the physical health outcomes of living in an Aids-affected family.



Cluver’s findings show how children with an Aids-sick caregiver are five times more likely to have tuberculosis than children with healthy carers, but only 4 percent are tested.



Once tested, however, children showed good treatment outcomes.



In the next six months, Cluver and her team of researchers and field workers hope to gain more information including about how ARVs can help, with initial findings showing that children have much less work to do when their parents or caregivers are healthy.



“Other research in Uganda shows that when parents start ARVs, their uninfected children’s nutritional status and school attendance improve,” she explains.



But as Cluver remarks in Nature, researchers, governments, communities and affected families must all play their part. “So scientists need to focus on the messy multifaceted social context of the epidemic, not just on the disease itself.”



Much more work lies ahead.



“For us the next major step in our research and in our work with the government is to test programmes to help Aids-affected families. We’re just now starting to plan how best we can do this – and we’ll be working in close collaboration with Aids-affected children, caregivers, local communities, traditional leaders and NGOS.



“It’s absolutely essential that we know what works so that we can use our limited resources to do the best for these kids.



Cluver has hope.



“This project has taught me just how united South Africans can be when the issue is important enough. And there is no question of the importance of this issue.”  http://www.iol.co.za/saturday-star/the-scars-of-a-tortured-generation-1.1122879

Phaksy Mngomezulu on Idols Season 7

Phaksy's Mngomezulu (Biography)

Phaksy is the last born of Mandla ( uBhuti kaMatshelani) and Dudu Mngomezulu who are originally from Manguzi but established at Empangeni. He's the only son amongst three Girls. He studied ICT at Richtek in 2008 and He's currently studying towards ICT Diploma at Varsity College in Durban North. He is a winner to be for the 7th Season of South African Idols 2011. He stole millions of people's hearts and brought many people to tears. He is the  most moving IDOL on our continental DSTV channel 107 recently.
He started singing at the age of seven. He was mostly inspired by John Legend, Loyiso and Nelson Mandela.  He is undoubtedly one of the best newcomers i in South Africa. To promote him let's SMS 10 to 34700, starting from Sunday next week at 5:30pm. You can watch the show on Sunday 5:30 on Channel 107(DSTV)

Foward Phaksy Foward, you make us Proud.

Tree planting project extends even to uMkhanyakude

Premier Zweli Mkhize on Sunday kicked-off a Clean and Green communities campaign that will see over a million trees planted in the next five years in the province.

The KZN Integrated Green Programme, is spearheaded by the provincial government, The Wildlands Conservation Trust and Business South Africa.

The five-year programme includes growing and planting trees, collecting and recycling.
The premier said the first step would be to expand existing initiatives in  uMkhanyakude and establish a new one in Sisonke, Umzinyathi and iLembe.
“Thereafter it will expand across all 10 districts and eThekweni,” said Mkhize.
He said the current initiatives had, from April 1 to May 20, created 126 full-time jobs, and 164 “tree-preneurs” traded over 50000 trees.

Some 145 “waste-preneurs” had collected and traded 61000kg of recycling

Communities around the Jozini Dam in north-east KwaZulu-Natal will soon drink water from the dam for the first time since it was constructed more than 40 years ago.

“For many years, the gigantic dam has symbolised nothing for the poor rural communities in the uMkhanyakude district other than majestic views,” the province's co-operative governance department spokesman Lennox Mabaso said in a statement on Thursday.


The first of the three water reticulation schemes would be unveiled in the kwaJobe Tribal Authority in Jozini on Friday. It would benefit at least 8000 rural families.

The Jozini Dam, South Africa's third largest, was constructed in 1970.

“For decades the community of uMkhanyakude has not benefited from the dam. This is a serious disservice, which is why we are funding this project,” Mabaso said.

“The agony of having to live on the banks of a huge dam but without being able to access the precious liquid inside will come to an end.”

Foot and Mouth disease Outbreak in the far north of KZN

The KwaZulu-Natal agriculture department said it regretted the allowing of foot-and-mouth disease fence in the KwaZulu-Natal north coast to fall apart.
“It should not have happened. We will make sure it is erected as soon as possible,” said the department's head of department, Sizwe Mkhize.

His comment about the fence follows the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in northern KwaZulu-Natal's Ingwavuma area where the "red line" fence that used to protect local cattle for decades had been allowed to fall into disrepair.

This had happened about eight years ago and Mkhize was unable to say why it happened. The fence had started falling apart in the 1990s, he said.

“I wish I could be able to answer that question. I was not in the department when it happened. I will have to check and find out why,” he said.

The department was expected to face a huge challenge in erecting the fence as homes had already been built in some areas where the fence was erected.

“It is true that there we will have to do a lot of consultation before we erect it again,” Mkhize said.


National competence

He said the erection of the fence was a national competence, saying that negotiations were underway between the national and provincial government to erect it.



The Inkatha Freedom Party on Tuesday said the non-existence of the “red fence” line was to blame for the outbreak of foot and mouth diseases.
"The fence between Ingwavuma and the KwaZulu-Natal north coast was vandalised over the last few years and has not been reconstructed despite funds being allocated for this purpose," said agriculture, environmental affairs and rural development spokesman Henry Combrinck.

He said the IFP had long questioned the provincial agriculture department's failure to spend the R25 million allocated for the reconstruction of the protective fence.

"The broken-down fence alongside the failure to enforce border controls has resulted in a free-flow of infected cattle from Mozambique," said Combrinck.

South Africa's leaky borders with Swaziland and Mozambique were responsible for the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, he said.

On Monday, Agriculture Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson announced that there was a suspected outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in northern KwaZulu-Natal.

"The department of agriculture, forestry and fisheries has picked up some suspect positive serological results for foot-and-mouth disease," Joemat-Pettersson told a press conference at Parliament.



She said over 600 animals had been tested and 50% of them were found to be positive.



The matter was reported to the World Health Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) on Friday.



All exports of cloven-hoofed animals from South Africa have been suspended.



Mkhize said the department was intensifying surveillance in the north of the White Umfolozi River to determine the spread of the infection.



The department was also collecting samples from the various parts of UMkhanyakude District to assess if there were any new cases. The process would help to determine the extent of the virus on the animals that have already tested positive.



“The department cannot confirm the origin of the outbreak at this stage,” he said. -- Sapa


Cited from Mail and Guardian

Grade 12 Results 2010 Manguzi, Ngwanase and Kosi bay Wards did exceptionally well

South African Education has recieved time and again much criticism when it comes to delivery. Our system of education seem to yield less positive impact on our communities. Inspite of much criticism three wards of Obonjeni District made it to the top. This is through the hard work, determination and commitment of our Teachers. Nhlange High got 100% in 2010 grade 12 results, Star of the Sea High School got 95% whilst the majority of schools got more than 60% pass. This indicates clearly the that our education is getting better and better each year.

Challenges

1. Poor and delabidated buildings
2. Lack of adequately qualified educators
3. Lack of Teachers - Learner Support Material
4. Lack of proper supporting insfrastructure (libraries and Labs)
5. Lack of Career Guidance in our schools
5. Lack of Bursaries
6. Lack of Classrooms
7. Demotivated and errant Teachers
8. Teacher-Learner relationships (Most Teachers bathandana nezingane zesikole)





This in turn tells us that we need almost everyone who is from our vicinity to fully support whatever an initiative related to improving the lives of our people in this region. We understand the new emerging armchair-critics who will always criticise, solely to serve their own personal interest.

Let's all get together to serve the interest of our communities