HIV Care for 5000 children/caregivers in Swaziland

Cane cutters are men from different parts of the country who are temporary workers hired to cut sugar cane in the cane fields. Cane cutting is not a high paying job, it’s just a job for survival, meaning it pays much less than a livable wage. All day long cane cutters work in the sugar cane fields to at least get money to provide a little for their families.

Life for these men revolves around this hard work, they live to tell a painful story of misery as they struggle to bring a decent meal onto their family’s table. They can hardly provide quality education for their children and are deprived of the opportunity to enjoy effective and efficient health care. They can’t afford to miss a day at work and travel to the hospital because no work means no income. So they find themselves becoming vulnerable to illnesses such as HIV/AIDS which can end up stopping them from working forever, leading to more poverty and death.

As an organization through our Community Health Intervention Programme eSwatini, when the cane cutters knock off from work we reach out to them at their compounds where they live using our mobile clinics, just as we do with other community people whom we do home visits to. We offer them HIV testing and counselling services, if needed we proceed to treatment for common illnesses among these vulnerable people. This greatly helps to avoid illnesses from affecting the health and welfare of their families.

We follow up on those that need follow up even though some patients disappear from the community as to try and hide from the organization because of pride, shame, etc. The hard work of our compassionate nurses and counselors who never give up on patients who need more help makes things happen. We then make other means to meet those specific people however we can, so that they don’t get sick yet they need to continue working. We save many lives by saving one.

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