South Africa

Emergency monthly food parcels to an isolated community

South Africa is a nation ravaged by HIV and AIDS, with an estimated 5.7 million people in the country infected by the virus. The Khuphuka Project is an initiative of Dharmagiri Outreach, a Buddhist hermitage in KwaZulu-Natal offering nondenominational aid to underprivileged communities of South Africa. Started in 2008, the Khuphuka Project was launched to serve the people of Mqatsheni, an isolated, rural community in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, where HIV has combined with high rates of illiteracy, unemployment, and poverty to create truly dire conditions. The Khuphuka Project is providing a wide range of critical help to some of those in the region hit hardest by the pandemic. Among Khuphuka’s key objectives is to ensure that households devastated by HIV/AIDS and those with young children have access to nutritious food. With a grant from BGR, Khuphuka is providing regular monthly food parcels to thirty needy households, and is also helping the families create food gardens that will serve as a future source of nutritious food.

Profile: Ms. O’s Story

Report by Dr. Anne Brouha, MD — In early April, while visiting Dharmagiri Meditation Center and the village of Mqatsheni on a work retreat for the Khuphuka Project, I spent time with a woman in her forties, Ms. O., living with HIV/AIDS at her home in the village. Retreatants and community members working with the Khuphuka Project had dug a garden for her household and would soon plant seedlings. Ms. O. has been treated with anti-retroviral therapy for two years with an undetectable viral load, yet she has remained malnourished and underweight. In late March she became acutely ill with respiratory difficulties, and was found to have tuberculosis. She was started on anti-TB treatment at that time. Her respiratory symptoms are improving slightly but she continues to lose weight. It turns out that because she has no money to buy food, she was eating less than three half-portions of cornmeal porridge daily. Too ill to work or garden, she can barely feed her children on government aid. Malnutrition due to poverty is threatening her recovery from acute tuberculosis. From a medical perspective, in order to recover, patients undergoing drug treatment for acute TB need high-quality nutrition including daily protein, fat and vitamin-rich foods.

A main focus of the Khuphuka Project is to create sustainable sources of food and income via the gardening project and to provide information and advocacy to assist HIV/AIDS and TB patients in obtaining government aid. However, it will take months for Ms. O.’s garden to grow and for monetary assistance to reach her. So unless she has a temporary source of adequate nutrition, she could die while waiting for these sustained food sources. Lack of adequate nutrition is a common problem in Mqatsheni, especially in households with ill family members. The Khuphuka Project successfully launched the gardening project, yet, to treat Ms. O’s malnutrition while she awaits her sustainable support to come through, a bridge of emergency food relief can make the difference between life and death. This is where the support offered by Buddhist Global Relief is playing a crucial role. —AB

BGR provides emergency food parcels for Ms. O and her community

This spring, Buddhist Global Relief gave a grant to the Khuphuka Project in support of the distribution of temporary food parcels to the most vulnerable families in Mqatsheni, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The food parcels were distributed at the end of June according to the criteria created by the Khuphuka team. The distribution went smoothly and the thirty families involved are extremely grateful for this helping hand in alleviating their distress. The next distribution will take place again at the end of July.

Note: In September 2010, Dr. Anne Brouha will leave her current work as an assistant professor of medicine at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, NH, for a position as a principal medical officer at a public hospital in rural KwaZulu-Natal near the Khuphuka Project.