Mosamaria has been funded by the Society for Family Health for the past two years to run a New Start Voluntary Confidential Counselling and Testing (VCCT) non-medical site service. We currently counsel and test over 1500 people per month.

For the past three years Mosamaria has run a successful Support Group for People Living with HIV/AIDS where more than 240 people who have been very ill with AIDS related diseases have been transported to our Centre, given breakfast and lunch, had prayers and a homily, had classes on treatment and how to live positively with HIV, have been taken to clinics and hospitals for treatment and assisted to get disability grants. Nearly all these members of our Support Group can now live healthy and productive lives, and many have returned to work. The Diocese of the Free State has generously paid these costs.

 

We have established 100 homestead vegetable gardens in Botshabelo using the trench method of organic production. All these families have fresh vegetables to eat all year round, and sell their excess produce to buy basic foodstuffs.

We work with 700 orphans and vulnerable children in 9 Support Groups in Bloemfontein and Botshabelo. We meet them once a week, teach them life skills, teach them about abuse and how to care for themselves, play games with them and develop their cultural heritage through traditional dances and songs, use the Crossroads method of dealing with painful life experiences through drama, visit the homes where they live, offer psychosocial support, and help them to get foster care grants.

We also have 98 Voluntary Saving and Lending Groups comprising over 388 members of foster parents and grandmothers raising 589 orphans, where we teach them economic coping skills and help them to start income generating activities. We now have 38 people running their own businesses.