Seke Rural Home Based Care COVID-19 Response Fund Update
Local community members near Seke Rural Home Based Care (HBC) who are dealing with the vast effects of the global pandemic. Many are struggling, not only from the virus itself, but from the side-effects that come from lockdowns, restrictions and food shortages. Thanks to their U.S. partner, Arkansas Hospice and Global Partners in Care (GPIC), Seke Rural HBC has been able to provide food, education and supplies to prevent the spread of the virus and alleviate the other major concerns families are facing. In total, they were able to provide food hampers to 10 of their most vulnerable patients and families. Read more to see their stories.
Diana is an 89-year-old widow living with dementia among other illnesses in the rural part of Zimbabwe that Seke Rural Home Based Care (HBC) supports. Diana’s daughter, and breadwinner of their family, Sophia, is unable to make a living due to the current COVID-19 lockdowns across the region.
Tilda, 96 has been unable to walk for many years and is in constant pain. Her son, Shepherd was self-employed by providing photo-copying services to the community. Unfortunately, Shepherd lost his business due to the current COVID-19 lockdowns and is unable to provide for the family.
Gertrude suffered a stroke and is paralyzed from the waist down. She lives with her grandchildren and great grandchildren and no one in the household is regularly employed. Their situation continued to worsen due to the restrictions and lockdowns.
“Covid-19 has brought untold suffering to most of our patients. The country lockdown brought everything to a standstill. Industries are closed and most people depended on informal trading for a living. Most of our patients belong to households which depend on selling wares or offering services. All this is not possible because of restricted movement. Hunger is showing its hungry face. Life will never be the same for some families after Covid-19 Lockdown because of lost livelihoods. They do not know how to start again,” a member of the Seke Rural HBC staff explained.
While hunger has been the main concern, Seke Rural HBC is also committed to helping stop the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. Thanks to the grant, they were able to give supplies including taped water buckets for hand washing with running water, face masks, latex gloves, thermometers and sanitizers to the families along with their food hampers.
Perhaps the widest impact of the grant, has been used in their partnership with the Ministry of Health to facilitate training of Community Caregivers to help prevent the spread of COVID-19.
They also utilized an open truck to broadcast prevention information from township to township. They would drive close to the markets during the busy times – early to mid-morning – to ensure the largest number of people would hear their broadcasts.
“Thank you for having Seke Rural HBC as one of your partners,” – these were the first words of the update that GPIC received from the organization. We’d like to echo their thanks from all of us here at Global Partners in Care. We thank those of you who helped to make these stories a reality!