This year saw PDI build four new houses for destitute families. We have worked with our builders to create a ‘PDI standard’ for every house we build so that our houses are both highly durable and functional. Our builders are derived from the community and every house is built with community involvement and approval at every step of the process.

Our Mealie Meal project to provide nutritional support for Gogos (grandmothers) with multiple orphan children (up to 22 in some cases) continues to grow. We currently provide monthly energy rich nutritional supplementation to 178 people (on average 145 of these are orphan children under the age of 15). This emergency relief aid occurs for a fixed time period during which we commence families on an income generation project and help them grow a vegetable garden so they can support themselves.

As part of our commitment towards true empowerment and the creation of sustainable change, PDI has commenced income generating projects for families living in extreme poverty. 13 families were given indigenous chicken farming training and 14 families were given training focussed in agriculture and vegetable production.  8 indigenous chicken projects were commenced with PDI being involved in every stage from designing and building chicken coops to assisting in creation of business plans and marketing strategies so that families would be able to receive the highest income from their projects.  5 new large vegetable garden projects were started for families in need with an aim to sell vegetables for income whilst 11 pre-existing gardens were cultivated and optimised with assistance from PDI.

As part of our commitment to create and nurture relationships with families in need, rural makeover projects were commenced for families with many orphaned children who are living in dire conditions. Many families who live in conditions of extreme poverty not only have very few material items, but those they have are sometimes in disarray; dirty and unhygienic. The PDI team enlists the support of the community and family members and spends a full day with a family, helping them with house cleaning, clothes washing, and educating the children and young adults about how they can do these things on a daily basis.  These makeover days cost very little but are a great way of re-connecting with the families we serve and showing them that we care about every aspect of their well-being.The PDI water project in the rural community of Mambane which provides water to up to 3000 individuals has been re-vamped and a recently broken pump has been replaced so that it continues to serve the community with clean, fresh water.

The Possible Dreams International Choir is a choir of young people from the rural areas of the Lubombo region of Swaziland. Their compassionate hearts and beautiful voices have touched people around the world. When PDI builds a house, the choir is there to usher in the new chapter in the family’s life. When we have a very sick patient in the community, the choir will visit and sing to that patient, songs of hope in the darkness.  2011 saw the choir’s first international release – ‘Voices for the Voiceless’. It features two songs donated by Brendan Graham and Rolf Løvland , composers of the worldwide smash ‘You Raise Me Up’.

We are so grateful to our ambassadors who donated generously and held fundraisers throughout the world in support of our projects. The ‘It’s not just a truck, its life’ campaign raised enough funds for the purchase of a truck for our important work in the field. Without this generous support we would not be able to continue our lifesaving work in the field.  Our ambassadors are truly diverse in their backgrounds and ways of living. We are united by compassion in working towards empowering those in need.

In 2012 we hope to consolidate and expand each of our projects in the field and grow our ‘pay it forward’ program so that every family who is assisted in turn helps another family within their community in their own creative way. Our mission is true empowerment in the setting of poverty and disease, and we will continue to strive 365 days of the year to live out that purpose.

Our Co-ordinator of projects, Cyprian Ngozo, told me last year “Doc, we are no longer simply partnering with the community. Possible Dreams International is part of the community.”

We thank you for the part you continue to play in making the dream possible.

Together we can,

Maithri

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Early one misty morning my friend Anna Zwane (we call Her Matron) and I ventured out in a borrowed truck to deliver some food parcels to Gogos (grandmothers) in deep need within the some of the rural communities of Lubombo .

There are few people in this world whom I revere more than the Swazi Gogos whom I know.

As the AIDS pandemic claims the lives of increasing numbers of people of child bearing age, they leave behind a legacy of lonely little hands and feet, the ones we call AIDS orphans. Approximately one third of all Swazi children have lost both their mother and father to AIDS.

Gogos form an integral part of Swazi society and upon the death of their own children will often take their grandchildren into their homes.

Many Gogos are frail and unemployed, making their ability to care for a throng of prepubescent children all the more remarkable.

One of our initiatives is to support Gogos who have taken large numbers of orphans into their care (often between ten and twenty) by assisting them in the cultivation of gardens, income generation and the provision of a monthly food supplement until such time as they can provide for themselves.

Last week we went to Moyeni to see a new Gogo for the very first time.

Her name was Gogo Josephine and she was blind.

When we reached her house, it seemed that Josephine was waiting for someone.

Grey walking stick in hand she sat silently outside her crumbling home. Her face was beautiful; Wrinkled by the mingling of time, love and tears.

Over the years Josephine had acquired a gentle, unpretentious wisdom which came from the washing of clothes, the harvesting of maize and the feeding of little mouths. There was dignity in her presence.

We explained why we had come. That in addition to helping the family to cultivate a garden we had a few practical things to share with her family.

Anna read out the list: Five kilograms of peanuts; Another five of sugar; Ten kilograms of rice; Fifty kilograms of maize meal; A kilo of soap; Ten white candles; Five grey storm blankets.

Blind Gogo Josephine looked at us, not seeing us and seeing us at the same time.

She began to weep.

“Can I touch them?” She asked in tender Si-Swati.

One by one I took the inanimate objects out of the truck and held them out for her to hold.

I watched as she caressed them, adored them, enfolded them in warmth.

She softly raised the long green bar of soap to her face like the hand of a lover.

She embraced the bag of maize meal like the shoulders of a child.

And then she took that dull, grey storm blanket and stroked it with a reverence and mindfulness which I’m sure a storm blanket is not accustomed.

She began to pray, in tremulous si Swati: “Siyabonga, Siyabonga, Siyabonga”

“Thank you.”

I couldn’t help but wonder how she could be so grateful?

Josephine had lost everything. Her husband, her children, her mobility, her vision.

Why should she cry ‘thank you’ for a bar of soap, a portion of rice and a dull, grey storm blanket?

And yet, as she prayed and talked to us about her life I realised that for Josephine gratitude was not a choice.

Gratitude was a way.

Through broken mornings and wounded middays; Through unexpected storms and the blinding dark.

Within a landscape of tears, her life was a painted thank you,

Meister Eckhart once said “If the only prayer you ever say in your whole life is thank you. That will be enough.”

As I looked at her face, lined in pain and gratefulness, I understood.

From Siteki with love,

Maithri

Gogo Josephine and her family now receive monthly food supplementation by Possible Dreams International’s Mealie Meal Project.

By Dr. Maithri Goonetilleke

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Gogo Alvinah is 73 years old. For the last 40 years she has been the janitor at the Good Shepherd hospital. She mops the floors, cleans the wards, and changes the linen for those who are sick and dying. Alvinah is famous for her heart of compassion. She is often seen feeding patients who are too sick to feed themselves, and she always has a smile and a kind word for those she meets.

The work Alvinah does is hard and her days are long. She actually retired 10 years ago, but finding no way to support her family, she was forced to return to the job.

Alvinah had 11 children. Seven of them have died secondary to complications of HIV. She tells me that there is not a day that goes by where she does not dream of her children. Of the four remaining children, three live in South Africa, and one is mentally ill and still in her care.

Alvinah is currently looking after 12 of her grandchildren and 2 great grandchildren.

She never sleeps. She wakes early every morning to cook for the children and prepare them for school (school fees are expensive in Swaziland). She then goes to work and returns in the evening to cook once more and tend to 14 sets of bruised knees and lonely hearts.

Gogo Alvinah’s family was the very first to receive food from the Mealie Meal Project.

The project began through the generous donations of one of our Ambassadors, Tessa Edwards, in the United Kingdom who donated all the proceeds from her artwork towards the cause.

The video below shows Gogo Alvinah receiving her first delivery of Mealie Meal and Eggs several years ago.

Since that very first delivery, the Mealie Meal project has expanded. Families now receive Mealie Meal, beans and milk as a first step, to help them in a dire situation.

Alvinah has since been assisted to start her own garden which is doing very well. She no longer needs food supplementation and instead PDI is working with her to help ensure her garden is successful and to start a chicken project where she will raise and sell chickens to earn an income for her family.

In this way we see families learning how to truly empower themselves and find self sufficiency, independence and lasting change in their lives.

Alvinah’s story is just one example of so many families which PDI is partnering with in the rural areas of Swaziland.

By Dr. Maithri Goonetilleke

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On wounded days, when the wind blows cold against my back, I remember Promise.

Promise Maphosa was born in the emerald mountains of Swaziland. Here in the little southern African country which has gained infamy as having the world’s highest prevalence of HIV/AIDS, Promise found love. Love which rested in the arms of a soldier and the eyes of a little girl who would soon become the epicentre of her world.

Promise worked as a teacher. And was in charge of a preschool class for orphans of AIDS in the community where she lived.

In 1999 Promise noticed that something was drastically wrong with her body. She became increasingly weak, and was told by hospital staff that she was having recurrent bouts of severe anaemia. Her weakness soon became so profound that she would become breathless at the slightest level of exertion, and it became difficult to accomplish the most menial of everyday tasks.

Promise felt deeply alone in her pain as her husband’s work meant that he would spend much of his time travelling. She also began to suspect that he was being unfaithful, and concerned that she too may have become infected with HIV.

So with what little strength she could muster, she packed her belongings, took her child in her arms and walked out of her husband’s home. In Swaziland, such defiance on the part of a woman is not only rare; it is in many ways counter-cultural.

She returned to her mother’s house and determined to raise her child alone. But her health continued to worsen.

In 2005, almost 6 years after her symptoms commenced, Promise’s deepest fears were realised when she tested positive for HIV.

As her disease progressed, she became increasingly bed-bound.

In addition to severe recurrent vomiting, Promise developed a severe inflammation of the nerves in her feet, which made it very difficult to walk.

At 5 years old Siphesiwe her daughter, became her nurse.

Siphesiwe would wipe the vomit and effluent from her clothes each morning and bring her food to eat and water to drink when she was thirsty. She would sleep next to her each night and wake before her each morning to make sure that her mother was still breathing.

At the height of her illness, when her immune function had dropped to almost nothing, she was afforded some of the precious antiretroviral medication (the treatment for AIDS) which had been allotted to the hospital by the World Health Organisation.

Little by little, day by day, Promise began to regain a little of the strength which had always been her hallmark.

One day she woke up and made a command to her illness. “Today I say to you, AIDS, You will not conquer me.”

And with that command, Promise Maphosa began to lift herself up.

No longer able to work as a teacher, she started selling ice cubes by the side of the road to make enough money to buy food for her and her daughter.
She cut and portioned Pork for market. She made and sold scarves. She did whatever she could to break free of the shackles which HIV had placed upon her life.
Today she continues to find it difficult to walk. “It’s like walking on cotton wool” she says…She is still weak and becomes short of breath easily. She is plagued by recurrent infections.

But her voice is strong….

“All I want…is to live. I want to see my child grow up and have her own family.”

“I want to be there for her. So that she too will not become an orphan.”

“I am a conqueror. I will not be conquered.”

In Promise’s wide brown eyes there resides a flame of dignity which even the deepest waves of suffering have never been able to put out. She is evidence that the human person is far more than a fragile amalgam of fears and insecurities, nerve and sinew.

The old Bob Marley song says “The conquering Lion shall break every chain.”

As far as I’m concerned, she already has.

By Dr. M. Goonetilleke

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In the midst of the struggle and heartbreak, a few shining lights of hope and renewal persist through the despair to pave the road for the orphans and vulnerable children of Swaziland….this is one of those stories:

My Sisi (sister) Nonhle (around 45 years old) is the mother of two daughters: one daughter has been “late (deceased)” for 2 years due to AIDS and AIDS related diseases and her other daughter, Nothando, has shown medical symptoms of HIV but is too afraid to get tested. Sisi Nonhle currently cares for her four grandchildren: Nomsa, Nomfundo, Albertina, and baby Sihle.

Sisi Nonhle lives on her family homestead (Ekhaya KaMatse) in a rural village in the northern part of Swaziland’s HhoHho Region. There is no electricity or running tap inside the house; they fetch their water in 25-liter water jugs from a community tap near the top of the dirt road leading down to the homestead. Although her two sisters (one with electricity and 2 taps in her house) and their children also live on the homestead (in separate huts), they all cook, clean, harvest, wash and pay for daily living expenses independently of each other.

Nonhle previously worked in the textile mills in southern Swaziland but became too weak and sick from HIV/AIDS and eventually had to quit and move back to her family homestead. Over the last year of knowing each other I’ve watched her ankles, wrists and health deteriorate-but not her drive to live.

When Nonhle first tested for HIV, one year ago, her CD4 (the “soldiers” who help fight off the HI-Virus) count was at a mere 64-she was literally “knocking at deaths door” (a commonly used expression in Swaziland). Sisi Nonhle is not the first of her brothers and sisters to test positive for HIV and decided to follow in their footsteps to not sit back and let the disease break her. She instantly became actively involved in helping to found SWANEPA (a Swaziland umbrella organization for HIV/AIDS support groups) and is very open about discussing her HIV status with community members and family members to educate them about the importance of testing.

She was tested again 3 months later and her CD4 count had risen to 81, progress in the right direction but still at a deadly low level. She phoned me last week, stating that she can no longer eat and has lost 5kg (about 11 pound) in the last month. Wasting away is commonly what happens to HIV patients as they progress into AIDS and draw closer to death. During her last month’s ARV pickup, the hospital decided to administer another CD4 test (blood must be sent away to the capital in Mbabane and returns two weeks later).

Six months ago, while visiting the Matse homestead, Sisi Nonhle mentioned that she has received land from the Chief to start a sewing project and teach the local disabled community members. I assisted Sisi Nonhle with writing a proposal (to an organization similar to Possible Dreams International) and she received money to purchase a sewing machine and the necessary start-up supplies. Over the last few months she has sewn countless curtain/bathroom sets and actually feeling good about having a pseudo income.

She recently had an interview to become the head seamstress for the school uniforms for a local primary school. I decided to meet Sisi Nonhle at the local hospital to get an updated CD4 count and hopefully find out that her recent loss of appetite was due to an amoeba or parasite and not a result of AIDS. At 2:00pm we lined up with the 60 plus other people waiting outside in the hot summer sun at the VCT (voluntary counseling and testing center) to get our results, and if lucky, to see an actual doctor.
We took our ripped up piece of cardboard that had the number 98 scratched on it (they had just called number 60) and sat down next to the bee-infested trashcan for some shade to eat our rice and cabbage. We were surprisingly let in an hour later. The initial nurse who took Sisi Nonhle’s weight and vital signs wouldn’t even speak to her and asked me in front of her if “she is retarded, does she have mental problems” with which Nonhle simply looked down in the indirect Swazi way and took the badgering.

Another hour past and the doctor (who recognized me from a previous visit to get Albertina tested) came back from tea break and invited us into his room. Nurses and confused patients were shuffled in and out, confidentiality wasn’t an option. Again, the doctor only spoke about Sisi Nonhle to me and asked me her symptoms with which he replied, “THOSE people” and “probably just one of those things you get from THAT virus.”

After much paper shuffling and my persistence, the nurse handed us the fateful piece of paper that had some magic number next to it which would tell us Sisi Nonhle’s progress or decline, all I could think about was the fate of the four children she cares for. After a deep breath the weight was lifted when our doctor friend told us Sisi Nonhle’s CD4 count has risen to 130! ‘It’s not perfect by any means yet but it shows that she is responding to the medication positively.’ We were both overjoyed and in an unswazi-like sweep of happy emotion she hugged me in the doctor’s office.

That afternoon we received word that the school she had previously interviewed with was so impressed by her sewing abilities they offered her the fulltime position to be the head seamstress to sew all of the uniforms (pants, shirts, skirts etc) for the local Central School.

Her eyes welled up with tears and she turned to me with a sigh of relief and soft look on her face that hinted that everything just might be ok after all. We set up a meeting time for next week to design the school logo for the front of the shirts, incorporating both of our initials.

Not only is her health improving daily but she now has a paying job to support both herself and her 4 grandchildren with transport, food, and school fees.
It’s a Happy Thanksgiving in Swaziland.

By Jacquelyn Eisenberg

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