I am Where I am Because of Where I Have Been

Cecy Dlamini, 19, lives in Soweto, South Africa with her siblings, nieces, and nephews. After her mother passed away from complications with AIDS 6 years ago, Cecy has been responsible for caring for her family. Through the help of Ikageng Itireleng AIDS Ministry and Keep a Child Alive, Cecy has been able to raise her family and attend school. As she has a passion for writing and journalism, Cecy has decided to share her story with you.

Chapter 3 - Brian

At the time of my father's death, my mother was seven months pregnant with Bruce and Brian. Ever since the day they were born, Brian had always been very weak. At first my mother dismissed it as a the myth that in each pair of twins there will always be one who is weaker than the other half. But the sickness persisted and Brian tested positive for HIV, but the ironic thing is that Bruce tested negative on the same test. Things became especially unbearable for all of us when my brother Brian started falling ill from opportunistic illnesses caused by HIV.

More often than not both my mother and brother would be hospitalised at the same time at the same hospital, HIV wracking their immune systems. But there is a day that stands out in my mind. It was a time when Brian's body was so swollen that it was twice its normal size and he was experiencing very painful blisters all over his body. For two days he screamed in sheer agony. He could not even sleep because pressure on those blisters caused them to burst which caused him to let out a cry for help which brought us all to our knees.

Brian had not been hospitalised for years since my mother's death, and we were all convinced that we had caught a very lucky break as he seldom complained of discomfort or pain in those days. Unfortunately we were in for a very rude awekening. Brian suddenly fell very ill very quickly only three months after my sister Sandile's death in 2005. After a dreadful week in which his naturally small frame had deteriorated into mere skin and bones, he could fight no longer. He was lying in the same bed that my mother had laid in less than three years prior, and he asked me to make some porridge for him. I was especially proud of him at that moment as it had been a struggle getting him to eat anything all week, not that there was much to eat in any case. All that we had to eat for two weeks was porridge. I dished the cooked porridge up into the biggest bowl I could find and to my surprise he devoured every last spoonful of it.

Little did I know that that would be his very last meal. I got up to take the bowl to the kitchen area and halfway to the kitchen something inside me told me to go back to him, and to my absolute horror there he lay, luke warm and limp with his head hanging from his neck. I remember seeing almost a smile on his beautiful face. I had experienced a lot of loss in my life before that, with the deaths of first my father, then my mother, then my older sister and now an innocent little child whose only crime was being born into this dreadful disease. That moment single handedly destroyed me. Brian's passing away felt like the last nail in my own coffin.

Date Raffle Benefits KCA

Rachel Kapur learned about Keep a Child Alive through the Tyra Banks Show. Alicia Keys' dedication to helping children in Africa and India that are affected by HIV/AIDS provided inspiration for Rachel.

Rachel runs a social networking and fundraising group called Network of Single Professionals (NESP). She focuses on a different charity organization each month. NESP has over 400 members in the New York area and wanted to help raise awareness and funds for KCA by putting together a Charity Date Raffle.

The Charity Date Raffle will be held on February 13th at Pranna Restaurant in NYC. 100% of proceeds from this event will benefit KCA. Rachel has organized special performances from two well known comedians and a magician.

If you would like to join Rachel please RSVP to:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=56937927791#/event.php?eid=56937927791&ref=ts

Planting Hope: The Blue Roof Clinic Community Garden

The Blue Roof Clinic in Durban, South Africa is the first clinic wholly owned and operated by Keep a Child Alive, bringing our dream of comprehensive HIV care to life in a community where its services are desperately and urgently needed. The clinic moved into its brand new state-of-the-art facility in December, and as word spreads in the community about the treatment and care offered here, our patient numbers continue to rise!

The beautiful new building!

The VCT (Voluntary Counseling and Testing) and psychosocial support programs at the Blue Roof are managed by our brilliant counselors, Thuli, Kathy and Cynthia. For our clients who test HIV negative, they counsel them on safe sex practices, and encourage them to return every three months to be re-tested. For our clients who test positive, drug adherence classes are offered three times a week, in English and Zulu. One of the challenges we have encountered is that many of our patients have difficulty coming to the clinic on a regular basis because they cannot afford bus fare. The clinic is currently developing empowerment programs that can be offered to our patients in the early mornings, so patients can be dropped off at the clinic early by their friends en route to work, learn a skill and then stay for their adherence classes.

Another challenge the clinic is facing is the need to educate the families of our patients, especially those in more rural areas. The stigma associated with HIV continues to be an obstacle to our AIDS relief efforts. Many of our patients have told our counselors how they lost the support of their families once they found out they were HIV positive. Can you imagine? One woman recently came in for her doctor’s appointment, starving, because her sisters would not let her cook food from the same pots and pans they used, and she had not eaten in days. The Blue Roof Clinic team is exploring ways that we can extend our psychosocial support services to our patient families, to help break the stigma that results in such physical and emotional abuse.

The psychosocial support program at the Blue Roof also offers a support group for patients every Thursday, and last week they began planting in the community garden! You could see everyone having such a wonderful time, planting all the different seeds. They planted all sorts of vegetables, which, once grown, will be used to prepare nutritious meals for clinic patients on a daily basis.

Preparing the seeds

Preparing the soil

Cynthia, one of our VCT counselors

What a beautiful team effort!

Moussa, our groundskeeper

It is so inspiring to see how simple a task can empower people. The Blue Roof Clinic is working hard to develop more activities like the community garden for our patients to participate in, so moments like these can grace the clinic all the more often, and so our patients will have items like the garden that they can look at and say with pride, “I was a part of that.”

I am Where I am Because of Where I Have Been

Cecy Dlamini, 19, lives in Soweto, South Africa with her siblings, nieces, and nephews. After her mother passed away from complications with AIDS 6 years ago, Cecy has been responsible for caring for her family. Through the help of Ikageng Itireleng AIDS Ministry and Keep a Child Alive, Cecy has been able to raise her family and attend school. As she has a passion for writing and journalism, Cecy has decided to share her story with you.

Chapter 2 - My Life was Forever Changed

Our mother made certain that we went to school and that we did well. I was always the best student in my class and I always got the highest grades and that made her very proud. She was always present at all my prize giving ceremonies, even though she had to walk very long distances in order to be there for me. She unconsciously instilled an unquenchable thirst for knowledge and education.

I remember a few months before she passed away, she had fallen severely ill and needed urgent medical attention. I gave myself a day off from school in order to take her to our nearest clinic which is about a kilometer from my home. It was one of the coldest days I have ever experienced, but I still wore my school uniform as it was the only outfit I had. I had outgrown it and I remember feeling like my legs were freezing and wiping mucous from my mother's nose as we waited in the cold to be attended to. We must have been there for three hours before we were helped by one of the nurses. My mother made me promise not to tell the others about what had happened because she did not want to worry them. From that experience I learned that unconditional love meant truly putting another person's needs way ahead of your own, at any cost.

The months subsequent to that day were consciously stored away in a secret safe in the back of my mind and I intentionally forgot the combination so as never to see its contents again. My mother's health deteriorated and one Wednesday evening I remember seating next to her as she tried to sleep, in so much pain that with each sound she made I felt my insides rip open like an old piece of cloth. It was three hours later that one of the children made a noise that was loud enough to brake the trance-like state I was in with my dying mother. I will eternally be grateful for that last night with her because it is what gave me the closure I so desperately needed and the opportunity say my goodbye and cry with her until I could cry no more.

A social worker who was doing house calls recommended that she be sent to a hospice the next day. That Saturday at 8:15 in the morning, Sheila Dlamini drew her last breath. The hospital called to notify us and my legs felt as if they were glued to the floor, a sharp pain consumed me. From that moment on, my life was forever changed.

AIDS Walk NYC: Join Team KCA!

Keep a Child Alive invites you to join Team KCA for the AIDS Walk NY on May 17, 2009. Please visit http://www.aidswalk.net/newyork/index.html to join the KCA team!

Click "Team Info" on the left side of the page, and then "Join a Team NOW." On the next page follow the instructions and find our team, "Keep a Child Alive - 9872"

Since 1986, AIDS Walk New York has raised millions for HIV programs in the US. As Keep a Child Alive is a community partner of Gay Men's Health Crisis, KCA will keep a majority of the funds raised by our team. Join Team KCA today and help make AIDS Walk NYC 2009 a success. Follow the above link or call Danielle Spitzer at 718.965.1111!

KCA College in South Africa

Join Tina, Eila, Briana and Kate on their January 2009 visit to three Keep a Child Alive sites in South Africa!

KCA Chapter Leaders Tina, Eila and Briana won a contest and were . You can win the same trip to South Africa for January 2010 by submitting a Public Service Announcement that advertises KCA's "Text 'ALIVE'" Campaign. Learn more about the Contest here.

I am Where I am Because Of Where I Have Been

Cecy Dlamini, 19, lives in Soweto, South Africa with her siblings, nieces, and nephews. After her mother passed away from complications with AIDS 6 years ago, Cecy has been responsible for caring for her family. Through the help of Ikageng Itireleng AIDS Ministry and Keep a Child Alive, Cecy has been able to raise her family and attend school. As she has a passion for writing and journalism, Cecy has decided to share her story with you.

Chapter 1 - Mother's Struggles

If there ever was a woman who completely and without any reservations, adored her children and was ready at a moment's notice to lay down her own life for those helpless bundles of joy she had so lovingly borne, it was my mother Sheila Dlamini. From her I learned that dignity and selfworth are qualities that are deeply sewn in one's soul and that even in the most desperate of situations one could still retain both. My mother would have rather died a thousand deaths before she let any harm to come to her children, and she tried to protect us from all things harmful.

When I was five years old my mother was pregnant with the twins, Bruce and Brian, and my father passed away due to severe malaria - or so we were told. What inexplicable pain my mother must have felt at the news of her husband's death, with four children already in existence and two more on the way.

In the years subsequent to my father's passing, my mother - who was illiterate - begged, borrowed, and almost stole before she worked as the only female construction worker in a railway company. After working for the railway company she began washing taxis at our local taxi rank. She asked drivers who were getting out of their shiny comfortable cars if she could wash their cars for them at a fee equivalent to one US Dollar.

One cold winter's day she approached a driver and he said she could wash his car. When she had finished her task the man told her that he worked in the building in front of them and that he had left his wallet in his office. He said that she should come to his office to collect it. With nothing in mind but getting enough money to buy food to feed her children back home (who had not eaten in two days), she stepped into the elevator with the man. Half way up the building the man pressed the emergency stop button and proceeded to brutally rape my mother. When he felt that he was satisfied forcing himself on a woman who was half his size he got up, dressed himself and ensured that the elevator procceeded to its destination. Then he left her there.

My mother didn’t have the taxi fare to get back home or money for supper, and she had just been violated in the most horrific of ways by a complete stranger. When she finally did get home that night after begging in the streets for taxi fare, she said nothing about what had happened. She kept the knowledge of the incident to herself until many years later when she shared it with my sister.