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As a member of the World Wide Palliative Care Alliance, HPCA together with its member hospices in South Africa will commemorate World Hospice and Palliative Care Day on 10 of October. All around the world, there are people who need hospice and palliative care that cannot access it. One of the major barriers is a lack of understanding about what hospice and palliative care is and how it can benefit people.
Voices for Hospices:
Linked to World Hospice and Palliative Care Day is an international musical event that takes place every 2nd year, “Voices for Hospice” Hospices in countries around the world hold musical events on the 10th October at 19h30 our local time, and the music carries on around the world for 24 hours
The objective of the event is also to raise funds and awareness for hospice and palliative care in your region and around the world.
What are the aims of World Hospice and Palliative Care Day?
To share our vision to increase the availability of hospice and palliative care throughout the world by creating opportunities to speak out about the issues
To raise awareness and understanding of the needs – medical, social, practical, spiritual – of people living with a life limiting illness and their families.
To raise funds to support and develop hospice and palliative care services around the world.
Theme:
“Discovering your voice”.
This year, the voices of people living with life-limiting illness, their carers and families will be heard to show the importance of hospice and palliative care and what it means to them. Policy makers and key people who can influence the development of hospice and palliative care will be encouraged to speak out about this important issue.
To get more information please visit www.worldday.org
Latest Events & Fundraisers
Cotlands Community Centre opens its doors
Cotlands’ Home Based Care (HBC) programme in Soweto finally got its own home when this national children’s charity officially cut the ribbon to open its new “Cotlands Community Centre” in Diepkloof, Soweto on September 8.
1 kid 4 weeks 2009
Partnering with Ronald McDonald, team Arcay aimed to bring smiles to the faces of the 60 children at Cotlands. And, it was MISSION ACCOMPLISHED both on Wednesday and Friday.
Impact
We certainly provided them with ‘something different’. During our first visit on Wednesday, 30 September, Ronald McDonald performed his circus show for the 21 children at the sanctuary between the ages of three and six. After the show, Ronald McDonald and the Arcay team had loads of fun, encouraging the children to try out circus acts including stilt walking, juggling and plate spinning, all of which are good for gross motor development and hand-eye-co-ordination. The children who participated were presented with certificates at their ‘graduation ceremony’ on Friday, 02 September.
Our second visit, which included all 69 children, brought with it tricks and treats. It started with the graduation ceremony for the eager circus school participants, followed by Ronald McDonald’s magic show, which had the children mesmerised. Each child was also presented with a ‘pocket pal’, a small hand knitted doll knitted by a dedicated team of Arcay knitters during September, and a party pack of goodies. The children loved the pocket pals, but like all children, really enjoyed the goodies which are a real treat for them. We also presented Cotlands with a cheque to the value of R20 000.00, the money having been raised by us during the month of September by holding twice weekly ‘cake and candy’ sales, a raffle for some good South African wine and a donation from a partner company and Arcay Communications.
Highlights
While the most significant highlight has to be the response of the children at Cotlands – their excitement, delight and the thrill of being able to participate – the amount of money that we raised, the enthusiasm and drive of the Arcay team, were as important. Our small team is truly formidable!
Parkview Senior School
Jonathon Everatt of Parkview Senior School, Johannesburg, raised R900
for Cotlands through his school's 'Entrepreneurial Day'. This is when
the children make their own products and sell to other children, so that
they learn the value of money, hard work and so on. Jon thought it would
be good to raise money for a cause rather than simply for profit, and he
suggested Cotlands. He sold AIDS ribbons (attached to Cotlands leaflets)
and so thanks go to all those who bought from him - and all our best
wishes to Cotlands!
Lexmark Printer Donation
The Lexmark printer was delivered and installed in East London and we showed Nomapha how to use it.
As you can see, she was quite excited.
To View the Sponsorship Letters for HBC 2009 click here
With a staff complement of 208 full-time employees, including an administrative staff of 24 dedicated professionals, Cotlands is constantly adapting to the growing needs of our communities through the efficient allocation of scarce resources.
At present, Cotlands is seeking assistance with funding for the provision of care within our sphere of influence. We are also currently in the process of meeting the needs of the jobless sector through identifying appropriate poverty-alleviation opportunities for persons with minimal skills.
As the world has come to understand, unemployment and poverty are two of the most significant contributing factors to the rapid expansion of HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa. Through the increased participation of donor partners, Cotlands intends to effectively manage and grow our services to meet existing and future challenges.
Jos and Desiree of the Netherlands shared their wedding celebrations with Cotlands by inviting their guests to donate money in lieu of gifts to Cotlands. Everyone at Cotlands would like to wish the newly weds a blessed life together and thank them for this very kind gesture.
An Exciting Holiday in the Bushveld
As with any family, when Cotlands prepares to take a group of our children on holiday, it means packing clothing, food, working out holiday budgets for accommodation, entertainment, more food, petrol, toll gates and entertaining children...
To read the full article, click here
British Navy amd Virgin Unite help Cotlands Children
The British Royal Navy was in South Africa recently. Virgin Unite, charity arm of the Virgin Group, decided to take advantage of their ‘might and brawn’ to landscape a garden for Cotlands in Turffontein – a home for children infected by HIV / Aids.
Cotlands Executive Director Jackie Schoeman was delighted with the Navy ‘lads’ who got stuck in and transformed a bare patch of grass into a garden in just a few hours.
The Navy is in South Africa to participate in the Ladysmith Swartkop Challenge, an extreme sport event for teams of 20 to pull a gun weighing 1 250kg up a hill and over a 120m course. Lieutenant Charlie Deal says getting involved in charity work is so rewarding and the Navy are always happy to lend a helping hand.
Click on the image for a larger preview
Our 70th birthday!
Click here to view our photographs from this awesome day
Raising a Nation
Cotlands, celebrating its 70th birthday this year, has evolved into an organisation whose scope now extends far beyond its original facility in Turffontein. Today, working among disadvantaged communities in Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga, Western Cape and Eastern Cape, it has became very apparent that in past decades of our organisation’s history, we were only skimming the surface of the real needs of South African communities.
The age group most predominantly infected with HIV in this country is 25 to 29, with a staggering statistic of 33%. Against this background, it is easy to understand why we have an ever growing population of orphaned and ill children. These children are being brought up by ageing grandparents or are supporting themselves and their younger siblings in desperate circumstances.
This is an unfortunate and challenging reality, but rather than stand by in quiet desperation, we have chosen to take a proactive stance in the face of this calamity.
One of our responses has been to devise the “Raising A Nation” campaign, a project that presents ordinary South Africans with the opportunity to make a small, but important, difference. Currently Cotlands cares for almost 2000 children each month, but, through this initiative, we would like to increase the number of beneficiaries significantly over the coming year.
Caring for a child under the Cotlands umbrella is a financially demanding undertaking. Through the Cotlands outreach programme, care workers go out into communities and ensure that the children receive food, clothing and basic essentials. They also assist the children by providing support and counselling and encouraging them to remain in school and acquire as much basic education as possible. The care workers help out with accessing and administering medication, including antiretroviral therapy, and monitor the children’s health at each visit.
Our national network of care workers is continually identifying more and more children who need this kind of help, but as resources are already stretched, new intakes have to be limited. Cotlands plans to increase capacity in our outreach programmes so that we can increase the number of children benefiting from these services, but to achieve this, we need sustainable funding.
It costs Cotlands on average R8 per day to care for a child, and the Raising A Nation campaign aims to encourage individuals to contribute, via debit order, R8 or multiples of R8 each month to support additional children, so that together, we can bring hope to life.
To support this initiative please download the Raising A Nation debit order form for the Cotlands website, click here
Article by Adele Horin. Reproduced with kind permission from the Sydney Morning Herald, Australia.
JAMES HECKMAN - a Nobel prizewinning economist talks passionately about children saying we should invest heavily in programs for young disadvantaged children because it makes economic sense.
"The gains from investing in young children can be quantified," he says, "and they are large."
Every rand spent on disadvantaged children in the critical pre-school years, through intensive enrichment programs, generates a 17 per cent annual return to the child and society. By the time the children are aged 40, society will be repaid many times over, through reduced crime, welfare payments and higher tax revenue.
Professor Heckman, who won the prestigious prize for economics in 2000 for work on econometric methodology speaks with feeling of the children who miss out on intellectual stimulation and end up at a huge disadvantage by age six: "Once a child falls behind, he or she is likely to remain behind."
From the University of Chicago , he began his research evaluating the economic returns of job re-training programs. To his dismay, he found them to be largely ineffective, as were adult literacy and prisoner rehabilitation programs.
It was more difficult for older people to learn new skills, and there were fewer years for society to recoup the huge costs of re-training them. Then he turned to the other end of the age spectrum, and found cause for optimism in the results of early intervention programs.
These showed disadvantaged children who experienced intensive preschool and home visiting programs did far better as the years rolled on than did control groups. Even if the programs did not always raise IQ, they had lasting effects on motivation, self-control and ability to plan.
"Learning begets learning, skill begets skill," Professor Heckman says. "The earlier the seed is planted and watered, the faster and larger it grows."
Tom Boardman's message on the Nedbank website
