Our largest core area in humanitarian aid is in the health and care element. Namibia has an HIV rate of 19.9% and therefore HIV and AIDS care support and treatment projects as well as interventions to reduce stigma and discrimination is vital.
To get your free copy of the
Namibia Red Cross Society’s Response to HIV and AIDS, send us an
e-mail at information@redcross.org.na.
Our Health and care component is made up of:
1. Water and Sanitation
2. HIV and AIDS
1. Water and sanitation
The water and sanitation project is part of the community based health and care programme. The project’s main objective is to improve the health status of rural communities by reducing morbidity and mortality due to water and sanitation related diseases in the Kunene Region, in Opuwo district.
The project’s main beneficiaries are the semi-nomadic Ovahimba and Ovazemba tribes, and the more settled Ovaherero as well as other minor tribes in area. An estimated population of 62000 people resides within the rural areas of Kunene region.
This is a comprehensive project that is consisting of a water rehabilitation program and with a health education component. The following are the activities conducted in the program:
· Provision of clean water by constructing and rehabilitating hand pumps at artificial streams, wells and boreholes.
· Conducting health education on water borne and water related disease as well as STD’s (including HIV/AIDS) in communities, using drama performances as a tool for conveying the messages.
· Building capacity of the community by training volunteers as community based health promoters. These groups provide ongoing health education through community meetings and house-to-house education, as well as participating in condom and rehydration sachets distribution.
The project plays a role in reducing diseases, especially in the ages under 5 due to the risk of living in unhygienic conditions. The programme encourages women’s participation by recruiting them as community health promoters, as they are responsible for collecting water from water points.
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2. HIV and AIDS
Our HIV and AIDS component has the following active projects:
• Home based care
• Community counselling
• Voluntary counselling and testing centres
• Mass media education
• Orphans and vulnerable children
• Community empowerment and income generating activities
• Tuberculosis
• Home based care
The home based care project targets people infected and affected by HIV and AIDS, TB and Malaria. This is done through the work of NRCS’ 2443 home based care volunteers.
The NRCS has a 3-tier home based care volunteer structure and their duties are outlined below:
- Supervisors, train and supervises care facilitators and care providers.
- Care facilitators, identify and train care providers.
- Care providers, identify and train care givers as well as identify people who need assistance.
However the NRCS relies on the communities to assist and care for the sick and this is done by care givers who are family members, near-relatives or friends of the people who are sick at home.
The project supplements and eases the burden of nurses at the hospital because this allows the patients to be discharged from the hospitals and receive care, treatment and support at home.
The work is carried out by our home based care volunteers who offer the following services at household level:
- Identification and registration of clients and orphans and vulnerable children
- Adherence counseling
- Care at home
- Treatment support
- Nutritional support
- Psychosocial support,
- Social support
- Economical and material support
The project operates in 7 regions: Khomas, Oshikoto, Kavango, Caprivi, Otjozondjupa, Ohangwena, and Kunene.
You are welcome to visit the nearest NRCS office to you, for further information and support. Click here for contact details. (LINK TO CONTACT US)
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• Community counselling
After an agreement with the Ministry of Health and Social Services in March 2005, the Namibia Red Cross Society has positioned close to 500 community counsellors in all the public health facilities countrywide.
The aim is to reduce the counselling burden on the health workers due to HIV and AIDS because the community counsellors serve as aides to doctors, nurses, social workers, and other professionals in public health facilities in all 13 regions of Namibia.
The NRCS manages, supervises and provides support to the community counsellors where the programme operates.
Today the community counsellor project is the largest project at NRCS, making the National Society present nationwide.
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• Voluntary counselling and testing centres
Namibia Red Cross Society in partnership with Social Marketing Association has opened a Voluntary Counselling & Testing (New Start) Centre in Katima Mulilo in 2003. The main purpose of the centre is to increase access to voluntary counselling and testing services to the community. Furthermore it is an entry point to HIV/AIDS prevention and referrals for care and support services for people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA). Top
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• Mass media education
Desert Soul is a project of the Namibia Red Cross in collaboration with Soul City, a South African non-governmental organization (NGO). It is a multi-media health and development communication project that focuses on health issues such as HIV/AIDS, TB, Malaria, gender-based violence as well as alcohol and substance abuse.
The project develops communication materials, including booklets, television and radio drama. The overall objective is to promote social behaviour change through discussions sparked by the topics addressed, thus mobilizing communities to positive societal norms and practices. The innovative aspect of this project is that it is community driven – in terms of research, deciding on topics to be addressed and as participants. The aim of the community involvement is to promote ownership of the media products. Programmes are also produced in vernacular languages to ensure maximum reach of rural communities and semi literate people.
The Namibia Red Cross Society conducts nationwide research focused on Namibian people, then develops and publishes TV and radio drama series and booklets. Currently the TV series is running 26 episodes on Namibia Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) on health and development issues. The project is also running a 41-episode drama series on NBC radio, which is centred on HIV and AIDS care and support, tuberculosis and smoking. The NRCS has also produced and distributed nationwide, 600 000 copies of a booklet on domestic violence called, “Stop the abuse against women”. This booklet is printed in five languages: English, Afrikaans, Herero, Silozi and Oshiwambo. Please click here to order free copies for your organisation.
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• Orphans and vulnerable children
Our orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) programmes are in seven regions that are implementing the home based care programmes. With this programme Namibia Red Cross Society aims to reach and support 30,000 orphans and vulnerable children by 2010.
Our “Orphans and vulnerable children strategy” in 2005, is in correlation with the government‘s National Policy on orphans and vulnerable children and all our OVC programmes ensure that the needs of the children are met holistically. NRCS collaborates and coordinates with other organizations in meeting these needs and ensures that the programme is implemented efficiently and effectively.
The components of holistic support include:
· Material support including food/nutrition and shelter
· Health
· Education support
· Social support
· Psychological support
In 2004, the Namibia government launched the “National Policy on orphans and vulnerable children”, which is based on the Convention on the rights of the child and the global framework.
The government policy and the global framework contain 5 main strategies:
1. Strengthening the capacity of families to protect and care for orphans and vulnerable children by prolonging the lives of parents and providing economic, psychosocial and other support.
2. Mobilizing and support community based responses to provide both immediate and long-term support to vulnerable households.
3. Ensuring access to essential services including education, health care, birth registration and others.
4. Ensuring that governments protect the most vulnerable children through improved policy and legislation by channeling resources to communities and,
5. Raising awareness at all levels through advocacy and social mobilization to create a supportive environment for children affected by HIV and AIDS.
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• Community empowerment and income generating activities
It is crucial for NRCS to ensure that our projects and the communities we serve do not become donor-dependent. Therefore the NRCS has established income-generating activities to benefit our people, long after donor aid has come to an end.
Income generating activities allow communities to sustain themselves indefinitely. This is achieved by setting up structures to provide these communities with funds to begin projects of their choice. A mutual decision between the communities and the National Society is then made and associations of not more than 15 people are set up and given an amount of funds and responsibilities to manage their projects. This is done in a revolving fund kind of set-up and the resources paid back by one association are then given to the next new association and so on.
The project also provides health training to community educators on social problems, health matters etc. The project also distributes mosquito nets and school uniforms and helps communities build water pumps.
Marginalised San communities in the Ohangwena region benefits from this initiative. They are given training in agricultural management where they learn how to farm and cultivate.
Our people’s vulnerable situation have several and related origins, so they must be solved with various and parallel activities, including working together with local authorities and international donors in order for communities to have ownership and responsibilities of their welfare.
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• Tuberculosis (TB)
The NRCS in its effort to complement the efforts of the government joined hands with the Ministry of Health and Social Services in 2006 to fight TB through the promotion of TB care in the community.
Through this initiative, communities are sensitized on TB, defaulters are traced, and patients are encouraged to select their treatment supporters for the duration of their treatment. All these activities ensure that the patients complete their treatment.
The International Federation, of which Namibia Red Cross is a member, is an active partner in the Global Stop TB Partnership, whose aim is to halve the prevalence and death rates of TB by 2015.
The NRCS has committed to scaling up tuberculosis control programmes across the country and integrate them into our HBC programmes due to the fact that HIV and TB are a dual epidemic.
The National Society is currently running the Tuberculosis Programme in the two regions of Omusati and Ohangwena. Trained 75 TB field promoters, who are attached to all health facilities, cover these regions. There are also 140 TB-trained nurses, who are working together with the field promoters in efforts to combat tuberculosis at facility and community level.
Community-based tuberculosis care has been shown to significantly improve both access to services and adherence to treatment, according to a World Health Organisation (WHO) report, and therefore it needs to be promoted actively and implemented more widely.
By providing increased access to tuberculosis treatment to vulnerable groups across the country, and ensuring higher treatment completion, Namibia Red Cross Society community-based programmes play a key role in global tuberculosis control.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO) tuberculosis (TB) remains a major cause of death worldwide – in 2005, 1.6 million people have died of TB, including 195,000 HIV-positive patients. In its global tuberculosis control report for 2007, published on 22 March, WHO reports an estimated 8.8 million new tuberculosis cases in 2005, 7.4 million of which occurred in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
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