Tearfund Link Project
Update from our Tearfund link Project we support in Mozambique.
Berta’s family pose for a portrait outside their front door. Photo: Peter Caton/Tearfund
Berta is sitting on a wooden bench in the sunlight, next to her friend Lurdes. They both wear pretty earrings and have their hair tied neatly into small squares. It is impossible to tell which of them has HIV. Thanks to you.
Tearfund thanks us for supporting those living with HIV and in particular though our link project Kubatsirana. This pandemic needs the hands and prayers of the global church and they are receiving this with our assistance and prayers. And there is good news. With our and many others help whole communities are being restored to their potential.
Mozambique has approximately 1.5 million people living with HIV. These women live in a district where almost 20 per cent of the population has HIV. A staggering 300-400 new cases are diagnosed each month.
Helped by your support Kubatsirana, a church-based Tearfund partner, is transforming the heart of communities profoundly affected by HIV. Trained church volunteers are befriending and caring for people living with HIV. They take them to get their first test results, sweep their yards, pray together, bring village news, prepare food. Meeting very human material, social, emotional and spiritual needs.
Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes. Always perseveres. (1Corinthians 13:7)
Berta and Lurdes feature in the ALIVE campaign which most of us studied in last autumn’s home group. The campaign focuses on universal access to life-prolonging HIV treatment known as antiretroviral drugs (ARVs).
Berta is a 29-year-old single mother of five children. She lives with HIV. Her friend Lurdes was the local church volunteer who helped her to get well - encouraging her to get tested and to take ARV’s.
Berta used to be stigmatised by her community and too ill to care for her children properly.
Now she is watching them excel at school and is ‘so happy’ at their progress. They are one in a million to her. Without Kubatsirana and your support, she may not have seen them go through primary education. Her children would have joined the ranks of the 12 million children orphaned by AIDS in Africa.
Today, Berta looks well. She is relaxed and her smile is infectious.
Berta has a message for the supporters of Tearfund’s HIV work. ‘I want to thank them. I think they are helping me in my life.’ ‘I still take ARVs,’ she says. ‘I am currently feeling better. I had malaria twice, but now I feel okay.’ Without ARV treatment, she may not have survived.
What’s the biggest thing that has happened to her since we last met? ‘Nothing,’ she laughs. Just normal life. Motherhood. Sustainable farming. There is talk of a possible marriage on the horizon. She and Lurdes giggle.
Now that Berta is restored to health, she has become a volunteer too. Imagine: people picking up their mats and walking – walking straight to others who need the same healing. Ripples of transformation that you have helped create.
Does she enjoy being a volunteer? ‘Yes I like it. I have 6 patients I look after in the community; I help them at home, with collecting firewood and cooking. I only have service. I cannot bring anything.’
About three million people die of AIDS related illnesses each year. Imagine if that number were healthy and mobilised to help others. Tearfund’s vision is to halt the spread and reverse the impact of HIV by 2015 in more than 20 of the poorest countries we work in. Working with church partners like Kubatsirana means that people living with HIV become an integral part of the solution, transforming the lives of other.
The community is changing before Berta’s eyes. ‘Before I used to see many people with diseases and now there is no problem.’ Lurdes believes attitudes to HIV have changed. People go to the hospital now. Previously stigma and fear kept them away. ‘There are many people on ARVs. They now treat HIV like malaria,’ she says. (There’s no stigma surrounding malaria.)
Today Berta is safe from discrimination. ‘Before – when I was ill – people used to come and say that there was something wrong with my life. People now come as friends.’
Lourdes is listening to Berta looking serious – but with a ready smile. She is a steadfast Kubatsirana volunteer. She has a message too. ‘I want to thank donors, as we can continue our work with HIV. We are committed. Thank you.’
For further information about Tearfund and prayer at HTH Contact Mike James. To find out more about the work of Tearfund click here.