Psycho-Social Care and Support

As the deaths from AIDS started to increase the trained Home Based Care givers were dealing with so many people being infected and dying from AIDS that they themselves were not coping psychologically and spiritually. Many themselves were infected and although they had the taught skills, they had no scope to talk about the impact on themselves personally and collectively as an HBC. So we as Church brought them together once a month to ‘debrief’ – share their experiences with illness and death – teach them coping skills and above all give spiritual support and offer counseling. We continue today in dealing with problems that beset the HBC groups. Many different topics are covered. In Ekurhuleni we have a bi-monthly mass together, where we pray for those who have died, light candles and remember those who are still infected. We were very fortunate in being able to take the care givers mass to Mayflower in Mpumalanga last year and hope to be able to take it again this year with the help of the Monmouth Diocese.

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