Clouds of Hope Aids Project

Dynamic and vital are two words that might have been designed to describe Abigail Ntleko. Affectionately known as “Sister Abi” by everyone in the Underberg, Himeville and surrounding communities, this diminutive woman has personally affected for the better the lives of thousands and thousands of people in this very beautiful mountainous region of KwaZulu/Natal.

Abigail Ntleko – the lady behind Clouds of Hope

“Sister Abi” – Childhood and Career Beginnings

Born to a rural family in the Harding area of KwaZulu/Natal in 1934, Abigail did not have a very auspicious start. Her mother died when she was three, and her father did not believe in education for girls, so from the age of eight she became herd-girl for her father’s cattle. But Abigail had a natural intelligence and a thirst for knowledge, and was very envious of those who could read and write. She began to attend a missionary church on Sundays. Encouraged by her teacher there, she rebelled against her father’s authority, and enrolled herself in the local mission school. Her Sunday School teacher gave her a dress to wear to school, as she did not have one, and at age 14, Abi began Class 1.

On her first day at school Abigail announced that she intended to be a nurse. Ignoring the taunts about her age from teachers and children alike, Abi made good steady progress. She worked as a domestic worker when she could, to support herself at school. Despite some set-backs, when she was 29 she gained what was then called a Junior Certificate, which qualified her to train as a nurse at Edendale hospital, and she completed her training in four years. She worked in missionary hospitals in the Port Shepstone area, until these hospitals were taken over by the apartheid government in the 1970’s. She then worked in Queenstown, and in the Umzimkhulu area, but wherever she went she was involved in community-oriented activities and did further training courses in community nursing whenever these were offered. In 1975 she joined the Department of Health, and in 1980 she was posted to Underberg.

Sister Abi begins her work in our community

Arriving in Underberg, Abigail was appalled by the lack of health services, especially for children, and set about lobbying for a mobile clinic service for the area. As soon as the three mobile clinics granted became operational, she motivated for a permanent clinic and additional staff, and by 1986, these were in place, providing desperately needed services such as immunisations, and antenatal and maternity services, and the clinic was providing 24 hour care.

Abigail never married or had children of her own – but that has not prevented her from having a very large family! She took on her first adoptive child in 1972, a 5-year-old of mixed parentage shunned by everyone, and shortly afterwards a nine-month old child abandoned by alcoholic parents. Realising she would have to have a place for the children to call home, despite the fact that she had to be away earning money to support them, she built a house on her parents old homestead, and called on family to help care for them. By 1990, Abigail had adopted 22 children over the years.

The HIV/Aids Epidemic rears its ugly head

In 1984 Abigail first saw patients presenting at the clinic in Underberg with symptoms that puzzled her. She sent them to the Provincial Hospital at Edendale, and when the diagnosis of HIV+ came back she immediately set out to learn as much as she could about this new threat. Thoroughly alarmed by what she heard, and understanding the implications for children especially, Abigail immediately produced her own materials and introduced HIV/Aids awareness education in the area, much earlier than in any other area in the Province. She went from farm to farm, involving farmers and church groups, addressed funerals and Sunday church services, spoke wherever anyone would let her.

By the end of the 1980’s more and more orphans and vulnerable children were coming to Abigail’s notice. Extended family systems were breaking down under the strain of the HIV/Aids epidemic – a family can only extend to the point where it can afford to feed and clothe those in its care. The stigma of Aids caused an increase in abandoned children as the myth that they could infect family members by contact persisted; and cases of child abuse rocketed.

Sister Abi inspires our community, and dreams big dreams

Convinced by Abigail’s urging, and troubled by what they saw happening, concerned local residents called a Public Meeting in 1989 and the Underberg/Himeville Aids Initiative was established. People from all sectors of the community came together to volunteer their time or resources to establish outreach programmes, providing food relief, clothing and blankets, transport, counselling and testing, awareness and behaviour-change training, home-based care for the terminally ill, education on the need for children to be registered and for death certificates to be issued, and assistance to get foster or orphan grants where these could be obtained.

There had been no Social Workers in the area for some time, the Dept of Social Welfare was lobbied, and two were appointed. The Aids Initiative also approached the Dept for money for feeding schemes, and currently manages the feeding of 200 children every school morning at two points in the area. Over the following ten years as the rate of deaths increased the extent of the orphan problem became ever more obvious.

It was Abigail’s dream, shared by the Committee of the Aids Initiative, to establish a residential home for children who had been abandoned or had no relatives to turn to when their parents died. By this time, in addition to her adopted family in Harding, Abigail was caring for eight children living in her tiny house in Underberg, including one who had been dumped on the doorstep of the clinic. The Committee knew of many other children who were at risk, and should have been in care.

A lucky intervention…

In 2000 a Committee member introduced an American visiting the area on holiday to the project, and his compassion was aroused. He established a charity in the United States, and the charity bought a farm, right on the edge of Underberg village, complete with a rather run-down farmhouse, and gifted it to the project. The farm’s original name was “Clouds”. In the South African context, where clouds are a positive symbol because of the promise of rain, hope and new growth. What had been called the Underberg/Himeville Aids Initiative changed its name to Clouds of Hope HIV/Aids Project, and the farmhouse became the Clouds of Hope Children’s Care Centre.

Retirement? What’s that?

Abigail retired from the Department of Health, and took on day-to-day management of the Children’s Centre, under direction of the Committee. She oversees the other branches of the project; the Aids Drop-In Centre and the Community Outreach Programme. Today there are 50+ children and 6 caregivers living at Clouds. Space is limited, but there is no limit to the laughter and learning, in a happy constructive atmosphere. This is no gloomy institution, but a true house of hope, with ambitions for every child to achieve his or her full potential.

But that was just the beginning. Proposals were submitted to The Department of Social Welfare and the Department of Housing for funding to build 12 cottages, each for 8 children and a caregiver. Both departments have given excellent support and have approved our proposal. However, government processes are complex and lengthy, and approval in principle and money in the bank are two different things - and our American benefactor very generously offered bridging funding so that building could begin.

In July 2005 Sister Abi turned a spade of earth, and construction began on the cottages in Phase One. Progress has been excellent, and children and caregivers have already frequented many of the new cottages. There will always be space for temporary accommodation for children who need a place of safety.

The existing farmhouse building will eventually form the Community Centre for Clouds of Hope, a venue for shared activities and social life, a schoolroom for homework, an office for administration, laundry facilities, bulk food storage and freezers, and a small sickbay where our more fragile children can be looked after when necessary. Vegetable gardens and chickens, which the children help to care for, are already thriving. There is a whole lot of work ahead.

In 2006 Clouds of Hope was also registered as a charity in the UK by return volunteers. The UK branch supports all the work done in South Africa, particularly providing vital funding for the education of the children.

W

e have our very own Gogo

It seems impossible that Abigail is seventy-plus. She has the vitality, focus and drive of someone half that age. She is up at dawn, fresh and raring to go, with a “To Do” list as long as your arm – and she is last to bed – peering into cots, pulling up bedcovers, murmuring loving words to restless children. Slight in stature, this tiny woman is a giant in achievement.

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