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| The INKANYEZI HIV/AIDS PROJECT, Orange Farm |
 Orange Farm is a sprawling informal settlement, to the south of Soweto. The Inkanyezi HIV/AIDs project was set up there in January 2001 with the hope of helping the growing number of HIV/AIDS adults and orphans there.
The project is made up of young volunteers between 18 and 30 who are otherwise unemployed. They are trained in home-based care, basic counselling, and the giving of workshops to school children between the ages of 10 and 15. At present their only renumeration is the sharing of meals with the HIV/AIDS patients and small donations when funds are available. 80 such volunteers have already been trained, and 35 more have enlisted for courses.
The volunteers care for 190 HIV/AIDS patients in their homes. They also accompany them to clinics when necessary and counsel patients and their immediate families on how best to deal with their heart-breaking situation. The Inkanyezi Project has also arranged fostering care for 85 orphans who had no immediate family to care for them. 
Sr. Dolores Cox works with the INKANYEZI volunteers and provides urgent help to children of HIV/AIDS sufferers. This help includes providing care and access to schooling. Soweto Connection has been able to provide financial support for this work.
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| Bethesda House , Soweto |
  Bethesda House in Soweto looks after children who have either been infected with AIDS, orphaned by the disease, or abandoned. It is part of the Carl Sithole Social Centre which is run by the Salvation Army.
There are generally around 30 - 40 abandoned HIV/AIDS babies and orphans at Bethesda House. |
There is also a school within the Social Centre premises, a children's home for girls aged 6 - 18, a community care and support centre servicing approximately 100 families, and a day care centre. The South African Department of Health operates a HIV nutrition-education programme at the centre. |
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| The RAPHAEL CENTRE , Grahamstown |
 The Raphael Centre is an AIDS centre in Grahamstown, in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. The rate of HIV infection in the area is extremely high, and many people are dying of AIDS.
The Raphael Centre is a community initiative, providing care and support to people with AIDS, supporting and developing community action, and fighting the stigma and discrimination surrounding the disease. It was started by local volunteers in 1999, and is based in a house in the centre of Grahamstown.
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 The centre provides a number of services for an increasing number of people with AIDS who visit the Centre on a daily basis. The services provided include daily meals for clients, individual counselling and support from a lay counsellor, childcare, life skills education including personal hygiene and nutrition, basic medicines, education and access to drugs and formula milk for pregnant women, to prevent their child from becoming infected.
The money from Soweto Connection is being used in three specific areas: |
- home gardening program for nutrition
- orphans and affected children's program
- food parcels
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| UMTHATHI TRAINING PROJECT, Grahamstown |
  This is a non profit organisation which supports the "home economics" of vulnerable groups such as women, children, the unemployed, impoverished rural communities and HIV/AIDS sufferers. It is based in Grahamstown and has been in operation since 1993. It's mission is based on the following principles: pro-poor, pro women, pro youth, adult education methogology and respect/dignity for all.
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Soweto Connection has provided financial help to two areas of the Project's work: |
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- the development of a new home health care program consisting of HIV/AIDS training with a component of herbal remedies
- school community gardens program
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| THE POWER OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN (PWC), Tshepisong-Roodepoort |
 Tshepisong is a relatively new settlement of around 800,000 people in the southern part of Johannesburg. The area is desperately lacking in services and facilities and most of the residents are living in poverty.
Like so many communities, this one is dominated by women and children. It is estimated that up to 45% of the women may be HIV positive, and many of the children are orphans. PWC are currently looking after 45 orphans, some of who are infected with AIDS, and others who are still fine. |
 PWC has initiated a number of programs in the area, including a Day Care Centre to look after orphans and a Home Base Care program for people who are HIV patients. Counselling, feeding, and cleaning/bathing/washing services are provided to orphans and affected children, as well as to adult patients. All of the patients live within their communities in Tshipesong, having been discharged from the nearby Leratong Hospital.
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| Mokone Memorial HIV/AIDS Program, Soweto |
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The Mokone HIV/AIDS support program started in 1998.They serve the basic needs of AIDS sufferers and their families in Pimville, Soweto. This includes feeding, clothing, covering school fees for children, funeral assistance, referral services, empowerment projects, etc.
The activities supported by the Mokone program also include counselling HIV/AIDS patients & abused women and children, home based care, family counselling ( prior to and after loved ones have passed away), e E-pap Distribution to HIV/AIDS Patients (and persons with other related illnesses), fresh vegetable distribution (both to HIV/AIDS clients and Senior Citizens) , health care and dietary counselling, s cholarship program for orphans, referral services (lawyers, social workers, government agencies, etc.), a ssistance in filling out grant applications and funeral assistance. |
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| Eluxolweni Charitable Trust, Grahamstown |
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Eluxolweni Shelter is a shelter for street children from the township of Rini and Grahamstown. There are about forty children, aged between 4 and 17.
Most have suffered severe childhood trauma, and while living on the street, many have developed addictions to glue or petrol.
The shelter is based in a converted railway building, and across the track is the Amasango School, a special school which caters for children kids who have been emotionally or physically abused, and have missed a lot of mainstream school due to their difficult circumstances. While staying at the shelter, all the children must attend school, so most go to Amasango, while about 15 attend the mainstream school in the township
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The shelter provides the children with perhaps the first stability they have ever experienced, although the conditions are poor. The bedrooms are cramped, each holding up to nine children. The facilities are limited, though the shelter has recently started a vegetable garden in conjunction with the Umthati Training Project and for many of the children, this represents a useful and enjoyable activity, and a new skill to learn as well as providing much-needed food.
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