San Camilo Home Programmes
With the aid received, San Camilo Home carries out the following programmes:
· Hostel
· Camillus Life
· Early Stimulation
· Happy Life
· Home visits
· Lighting up a life
· Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART)
· Adolescents
· Listening centre
· Creating awareness and prevention
· Needs not currently covered/New projects
HOSTEL:
This programme was the first to be implemented, in 1995, to shelter and help adult males with HIV/AIDS, in need of emotional, physical, spiritual and family help. The aim is to achieve recovery on all these levels and reintegrate them into the social and family environment. The capacity of the hostel is of 16 people and the reasons why people seek to participate in the hostel experience are the discrimination, stigma and isolation they suffer.
During their stay, they are helped to take back their lives, to face the disease with courage and dignity and to continue fighting for life. Through workshops, experiential meetings and formative talks it is intended to generate a change in life style, improving nutrition, hygiene and attitudes. In addition, they are provided with human warmth to ensure they feel amongst family.
As in any home, the residents are responsible for the cleaning and care of their rooms and the garden and other communal areas. Families are also worked with by means of meetings and talks which help them to understand the disease and accept the HIV positive family member. During the course of its thirteen years of life the programme has helped more than 500 residents.
CAMILLUS LIFE:
It was begun in 1997 with the aim of providing infant formula milk to the new-born of HIV positive mothers, thereby avoiding HIV infection through maternal milk. Thanks to this programme and, to-date, more than 600 mothers have given birth to healthy children. The majority of the beneficiaries live in the various districts of Lima and Callao and some of the provinces. The formula milk is distributed weekly, every Wednesday. Currently, infant formula milk is provided not only to children up to the age of six months, when nutrition comes solely from milk, but it is also extended to children up to the age of two and a half to thereby guarantee their healthy development, based on a child’s right to grow healthily.
The programme does not consist solely in the distribution of infant formula milk, but also encourages the participation of the mothers in different activities aimed at strengthening them and teaching them about caring for their children, and they are therefore addressed by various professionals (psychologists, doctors, obstetricians, social workers). Meanwhile, the volunteers take care of the children in the Home’s nursery. The spiritual and religious element has a very important role to play, which is developed with talks, the Eucharist and some days of retreat. More than 800 children have benefited from the programme since its inception.
EARLY STIMULATION:
The mother plays a fundamental role in the development of the child: it is she who teaches the child to eat, walk, wash, speak and understand, to relate to him/herself and others, to pray, etc... The objective of this programme is to encourage and strengthen the mother-child bonds, often affected by the mother’s fear of infecting her child with the disease. It is aimed at mothers who live with HIV/AIDS and their children under the age of 36 months who show a deficit in any of their psycho-motor and/or cognitive development. A deficit which may be due to a lack of stimulation on the part of the parents, or the effect of the virus, or of the medication received by the mothers during pregnancy in an attempt to prevent infection of the child during pregnancy and birth.
To strengthen the mother-child bond group sessions are held, in which the participation of the mother is favoured, and that of the father when present, who thereby learn to attribute greater value to their role, indispensable for the integral and harmonious development of their child, and all of this in turn improving self-esteem and self-help with regard to health. Early stimulation favours the appropriate development of a child and reduces the possibility of future learning difficulties and subsequent school failures.
A HAPPY LIFE:
Sick children would come to the Home with their parents, or another family member in the case of orphans, in search of greater life expectancy. The majority of them arrived undernourished, as much through the disease as through the conditions of extreme poverty in which they lived. Therefore, on 17th of April of 2003 this programme began, based on alimentation, to complement their deprived diets. These children have special needs: correct nutrition plays a fundamental role in their growth and quality of life. Every Tuesday they receive a balanced lunch and a package of provisions for their weekly food supply at home.
Little by little, the programme has been extended, in such a way that currently the children receive medical, psychological, nutritional and nursing care. The social worker maintains a continuous dialogue with the family, intervening where necessary. Hospital visits are undertaken when children are admitted, providing moral, psychological and spiritual support, as well as subsequent help with medication and/or medical materials, as in the hospital all the materials used by the patient have to be paid for by him/her, including thermometers, transfusion equipment, drips and, of course, medication.
In addition, workshops and educational talks are held, as well as recreational time for the family group as a whole. During the summer holidays, leisure and educational trips are organised to different places, where they can enjoy healthy climates and where they learn to live together.
There are also activities for mothers or grandmothers when the former have passed away: talks, workshops and dynamic groups held by professionals (psychologists, social workers, etc) to learn how to improve the quality of life for children.
Currently, there are 79 children (with their families) in the programme, whose ages range from one and a half years of to 14 years of age.
HOME VISIT:
Many of the sick, children and adults, lock themselves up at home through fear of being singled out or poorly cared for in health centres, and therefore they don’t visit the doctor. Sometimes they die without anyone having evaluated them medically. The need to support people living with HIV/AIDS and the urgency of rationalising the scarce economic resources available, meant that in 1999 the first home visits took place to then take definitive shape in 2000 with the help of ANESVAD. Its objective was to shed a light of hope on to all these people. In this way, people living with HIV/AIDS receive integral care (medical, nursing, social worker, psychologist, obstetrician, nutritionist, spiritual and moral support) in their own homes.
Home help does not take the place of hospital care, but rather complements it. In fact, the importance of medical examinations and analyses are insisted upon, along with their supervision at a medical centre or hospital. Often the most important thing to provide, that which is most valued by the patient, is the company, someone who will listen.
Two multi-disciplinary teams leave the Home on a daily basis to visit some 25-30 people, 400 families each year. Nowadays, the Home Visit programme provides support to more than 700 people and, to-date, more than 20.500 people have been visited.
LIGHTING UP A LIFE:
Maternity in women with HIV is full of fear and feelings of guilt, sometimes provoking the abandonment of themselves and the lives they carry within. Vertical transmission, i.e. during pregnancy and birth, is the main channel of HIV infection in children. Due to this, in May of 2004, the Home aims to provide a virus-free life for children yet to born of HIV positive mothers and implements this programme with the motto “may a healthy child be born”. The programme provides emotional and spiritual support, nutritional help and medical assistance to all pregnant women, the majority of whom have very low economic and social resources. To-date, the programme has brought support to more than 35 mothers, of which 15 have given birth complying with all the recommendations imparted throughout the programme.
The majority of women discover their diagnosis when becoming pregnant, when the health centre carries out their first blood analysis. It is at this point that the health centre sends them to the Home. They tend to arrive in an extremely emotional state and are therefore met at the Home by two HIV positive advisors who give them the emotional support they so need and advise them about all they need to do in order to manage their pregnancy properly. In addition, an obstetrician will follow the entire process.
The programme provides complete assistance: they have weekly medical and nutritional supervision; they participate in prenatal stimulation, educational talks as well as workshops to prepare for the arrival of the baby.
Medical supervision of a woman with HIV must continue after the pregnancy and is the responsibility of each woman to ensure she attends. The Home seeks to make the woman aware of the need to carry out control blood tests to avoid any illness in the child, invoking the right of the child to be born healthy.
HIGHLY ACTIVE ANTIRETROVIRAL TREATMENT (HAART):
The Home, thanks to its background in the care of HIV/Aids patients (good nutrition, care and affection) has won the esteem of people in general, public authorities and the Church. Since the 17th of November 2004 and thanks to the Global Fund of the United Nations and in agreement with and authorised by the Ministry for Health, the Home is one of the centres authorised to administer Highly Active AntiRetroviral Treatment (HAART) to adults with HIV/AIDS.
The multi-disciplinary team of the programme currently has some 340 people receiving treatment and monthly medical supervision. There is also a waiting list of patients waiting to be treated, who receive biannual medical supervision. A more frequent supervision is organised in cases of emergency, sending the team on home visits. The help provided by the antiretroviral medication is of great importance as the great majority of these people are extremely poor and would not have had access to this medication. In addition, these people regularly attend workshops about their rights, nutrition, psychology, pharmacy, as well as on other important subjects in order to help them live their lives with dignity and serenity.
ADOLESCENTS:
With life expectancy extended for children with HIV/AIDS, in 2005 this programme was born with the aim of training a group of youth leaders (AIDS patients or children of patients). The objective is to train future spokespeople about the fight against AIDS, promote self-esteem, communication and values, as well as tolerance in the face of difficult situations. In order to do so, training workshops are held on medical and psychological subjects, social skills are promoted by means of music classes and theatre workshops, corporal expression and solidary activitities outside the institution. There are currently eleven males and sixteen women participating, whose ages range between 12 and 17.
LISTENING CENTRE:
This is an important space for the person attending the Home, specially if they are sick, have lost a loved one or feel alone. It is a service of emotional and spiritual care to which one person alone may have access or he/she may attend accompanied by friends and/or family. This programme offers support, understanding and guidance to the person with HIV and his/her family, promoting autonomy and responsibility. Counselling techniques are used to achieve this, along with different techniques depending on the individual difficulties (abuse, alcohol consumption, violence).
CREATING AWARENESS AND PREVENTION:
Creating awareness is part of the San Camilo Home’s commitment, both amongst the HIV positive and among society in general. This programme was begun in May of 2006 and was consolidated through contact with educational centres, parishes and other institutions, for the purpose of sensitizing the community, and providing information and education about the problem of HIV/AIDS both amongst the young and adults alike. Each year the programme team visit more than 20 educational centres, reaching an average of 5.300 students, 5.300 parents and 400 teachers.
A group of volunteer Youth Promoters has been created, carriers of a message of solidarity and non-discrimination, whose mission will be to spread the message of prevention and sensitization/solidarity with regard to HIV/AIDS.
With this group, visits to the Home are organised to participate in activities, regular meetings, training and education camps and they are involved in solidary activities. To-date, a population of approximately 13.296 adolescents, 9.466 parents and 1.300 teachers from 47 schools have been reached. The objective is to reduce as much as possible the risk of transmission of the virus. The San Camilo Home also promotes the use of condoms, encourages respect and fidelity in relationships, delay in commencing sexual relations and seeks to strengthen the communication between parents and children. To do so, separate workshops are set up for parents and for students, training activities for teachers, all of which promote research into risk behaviour in adolescents with regard to HIV.
NEEDS NOT CURRENTLY COVERED/ NEW PROJECTS:
After 13 years of experience in providing services to the most needy, more than 3.000 of them, we continue to share their pain and to discover great needs that need to be covered.
1. The situation of the children orphaned by AIDS. There are no resources for these children who are often obliged to live on the streets when they cannot be cared for by the family members remaining.
2. The extreme conditions of poverty which entail the absence of drinking water and sanitation. We can solve this situation with water filters, plastic storerooms, latrines, etc. The fitting of these elements would be undertaken by those affected.
3. Office of Solidarity. We could create a service promoting solidarity in order to unite all the activities that have already been developed along these lines (presentation of projects, management of donations, search for resources...) and thereby achieve a more efficient and effective management of the funds that facilitate the basic structure of the Home.
4. Residents. With 5€ a day, the life of one person can be changed radically. That is what it costs to keep a resident at the San Camilo Home.