HACT

Unconditional love and hope for all impacted by HIV/AIDS

The Hillcrest AIDS Centre Trust (HACT) is a multifaceted, holistic HIV/AIDS project that exists to provide unconditional love and hope to all impacted by HIV/AIDS in a practical, sustainable way. The organisation was founded in 1990 as a ministry of the Hillcrest Methodist Church, as a response to the then minister’s conviction that the church needed to respond to the emerging HIV pandemic. It has developed over the past 23 years to be a dynamic, independent nonprofit organisation and registered Trust with a suite of programmes that respond to the HIV/AIDS pandemic from several different angles.

Situated in the accessible and central town of Hillcrest, roughly half way between Durban and Pietermaritzburg in KwaZulu-Natal, HACT serves several poverty-torn communities in the Valley of 1000 Hills region – one of the epicentres of the world’s HIV pandemic with estimated HIV-infection rates of up to 40-60 percent of the population in some communities.

Over the past 23 years, HACT has expanded its suite of projects and programmes year on year, always in response to the needs on the ground in the communities it serves. Where a need has been witnessed, a plan has been put into place to respond to that need in a way that uplifts and empowers, rather than demoralises. The organisation employs 64 staff members, the majority of whom come from the surrounding communities, and many of whom are infected or affected by HIV/AIDS and have come through its programmes.

HACT’s mission is to serve all those impacted by HIV and AIDS by providing unconditional love and hope in a practical, sustainable way. Its vision is to be a self-sustaining nonprofit organisation that empowers and develops a strong and united team who work together to respond to the HIV/AIDS crisis in ways that are community-driven and relevant for each era of the pandemic.

Its projects focus on four different areas: care, prevention, poverty alleviation and income generation.

Care:

• 24-bed Respite Unit;
• HIV counselling and testing onsite, in workplaces and in communities;
• Out Patients Clinic staffed by nurses;
• ARV readiness training;
• Home based care programme; and
• Children's Programme working with orphans and vulnerable children.

Poverty Alleviation:

• Community vegetable gardens;
• Chicken and egg  projects;
• Feeding scheme;
• Clothing scheme;
• Granny support groups; and
• School fee fund.

Prevention:

• Peer Education programme in high schools
• Life Skills Education programme in primary schools
• Corporate and community HIV education workshops

Income Generation:

• Woza Moya ('Come holy spirit') Craft Store;
• Izingadi Zethemba ('Gardens of Hope') plant nursery;
• Second hand bookstore;
• White Elephant second hand goods store; and
• Recycling project creating bags and accessories from waste products.

HACT Impact:

• + 650 HIV tests per month;
• + 40 patients admitted to the Respite Unit per month, of which roughly 65 percent recover and are discharged, and 35 percent pass away with dignity and respect;
• 20 Home-Based Carers providing care to 460 patients in their homes;
• + 65 people trained to be HIV counsellors annually;
• + 100 people trained to be home-based carers annually;
• Over 1 000 school students reached per month with HIV education programmes;
• 42 families receiving food parcels every two weeks; 
• + 300 crafters receiving an income every month for the production of arts and crafts for the Woza Moya craft store;
• 20 women creating an income for themselves by selling donated clothing; 
• 1 500 grannies involved in granny support groups, many of which have started income generation projects such as sewing initiatives, vegetable gardens and chicken farming; and
• 64 staff members employed, most of whom come from the communities it serves.

HIV awareness and education:

HACT Education Department aims to educate people of all ages about HIV/AIDS and its related issues. They make presentations at work-places and schools, and they facilitate life-skills and peer-education programmes in both primary and high schools in several communities. The organisation believes that, in order to break through the rich stigma that exists around a HIV diagnosis, education is the key, and that we must continuously increase the dialogue around HIV/AIDS at the home, school, community and provincial level.

Counselling:

HACT has a team of counselors who conduct roughly 650 HIV tests per month at various locations including our out-patients department, within its respite unit, out in the community, and at work-places. Its conviction is that if everyone in the communities it serves could test, know their status, and seek treatment if HIV-positive, then the community would see a dramatic decrease in the number of people presenting at our Respite Unit with terminal AIDS. In addition to HIV counseling and testing, the organisation’s counseling team is also available for crisis counseling, and their services are regularly called upon by community members, other nonprofit organisations who do not have onsite counselors, and by its patients. HACT also conducts training modules for people who will be starting ARV medication, and it conducts ARV referrals.

Crisis intervention – Feeding Scheme:

HACT provides food parcels twice a month to 40 families who have no other form of income and no way of accessing food. The organisation view this as a short-term intervention designed to meet an immediate crisis – hunger. Once a family is on the feeding scheme, it works with them to find a longer-term solution to meet their needs. This solution could be to help them access a social grant, it could be to bring them into our income generation project and train them up as a crafter, or it could be to build them a vegetable garden from which they can grow food and sell the surplus to make an income. Most families are ready to move off the feeding scheme after about six months, and we then bring another desperately needy family onto the scheme. This project is implemented by the counselling team, who are at the forefront of working with the communities and identifying those individuals and families most direly in need.

Gardens of Hope – nursery and horticulture project:

HACT has a large onsite nursery, called Izingadi Zethema (‘Gardens of Hope’) that sells indigenous and imported plants for every garden. Using the funds raised from nursery sales, plus added donations, we have started 150 vegetable gardens for poverty-torn families living in the surrounding communities. The organisation has also started gardens in schools and for community groups. The gardens allow families or schools to grow their own vegetables and become food-secure. They also provide an opportunity for families to bring in a small income by selling the excess produce. HACT itself buys some produce from our garden families, for use in the Respite Unit and feeding scheme.

Woza Moya Merchants of Marvel Craft Store:

Woza Moya, our well-known onsite craft store, provides an income to roughly 160 crafters (includes pottery, beadwork, sewing, crocheting, fabric painting and wirework) that are supported by the funds raised through craft sales. The crafters are all community members who are infected or affected by HIV/AIDS and are living under poverty. HACT provides an opportunity for them to earn an income each month. Woza Moya is also the name behind a number of well-publicised art projects, including the Dreams 4 Africa Chair and the World’s First Beaded Suit.

Respite Unit:

HACT has an onsite 24-bed respite unit for people with advanced terminal AIDS, and while most people come to its unit expecting to die, amazingly roughly 60 percent of them end up recovering and being discharged – thanks to the love and care provided by its dedicated team of staff and volunteers. The Respite Unit is staffed by dedicated nurses and home-based carers and care is provided completely free of charge to its patients. Criteria for entry is that patients must have a terminal illness, must be bed-ridden, and must have no care-giver at home. The unit provides an environment of love and acceptance, in which a patient can either be nursed back to health and then initiated onto ARV medication, or can die with dignity and in as much comfort as possible.

Home-Based Care:

HACT provide stipends to roughly 25 home-based carers who work in their communities to provide basic medical care to people suffering from HIV/AIDS. These carers refer people from their communities to receive counseling and testing in our out-patients department, or to be admitted in the respite unit if they are terminally ill. Once a patient is discharged from the respite unit, home-based carers will follow up that patient with home visits to ensure their health continues to improve and to monitor any complications or set-backs they may face post-discharge.

Granny Support Groups:

HACT has 35 Grannie Support Groups across five different communities, of which roughly 1 600 Grandmothers are members. The groups meet regularly to support each other in their plight as Grandmothers affected by HIV/AIDS – in most cases having lost their children to AIDS and being left as the sole care-giver for several grandchildren. The groups are engaged in many stress-alleviation and skills-development activities including sports and literacy training.

Clothing Scheme:

Roughly 20 families make a weekly income through our clothing scheme. People donate clothes that they no longer want or need, and HACT sorts those clothes into 40 bags each week. The families collect a bag of clothes and they then sell those clothes either at the centre (to its own staff and each other) or in their community. Each bag of clothes can bring in between R300 and R500 for a family. The first bag is provided free of charge, and all subsequent bags are purchased for R10 – encouraging ‘buy in’ from the families and working against a hand-out mentality.

School Fee Fund:

The organisation provides school uniforms and cover school fees for children who are infected or affected by HIV/AIDS and are living under poverty. To date we have covered school fees for 80 children and we have provided school uniforms for 94 children.

All these projects work together to provide a holistic response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic within local communities.

To view the Hillcrest AIDS Centre Trust in the Prodder NGO Directory, click here.