Projects in the
Rural Area – Albert Luthuli Municipality
The Diocese has trained 50 lay
counsellors who work in the Embhuleni (Elukwatini)
and Carolina hospitals as well as in local
community clinics as well as 414 caregivers
of home-based care projects in communities
which fall within the Albert Luthuli Municipality
in the Eastern Highveld region of Mpumalanga.
This was done through the clustering of
caregivers/lay counsellors in several communities
who were brought together for the counselling
training workshop. 6 workshops involved
the clustering of 24 projects. The caregivers
and lay counsellors from the community of
Waverley were trained on their own because
of the distance between themselves and other
projects. The same applied to the training
of caregivers and lay counsellors in Carolina
this year. Joana Mhlongo conducted all training
sessions and was assisted by Fr Peter Mbatha.
Funder: DFID
The caregiver/counsellors of the various
projects as well as lay counsellors in the
various communities provide voluntary testing
and counselling (VCT) services, pre- and
post-test counselling as well as ongoing
HIV/AIDS counselling in community clinics
and the local Embhuleni hospital. The caregiver-counsellors
use their counselling skills also in their
day to day home-based care activities.
An HIV/AIDS counselling workshop for 27
pastors and three lay people from various
Christian denominations in Elukwatini, Aarumburg,
Badplaas and Nhlazatshe was conducted on
5 – 9 June 2006 in Elukwatini. The
group of pastors continue to meet on a monthly
basis in order to support each other and
also to workshop issues relating to HIV
and AIDS.
