During the subsequent visit to the KwaSani municipality, a visit was paid to the founder’s residence, Sister Abigail, where an interview was conducted between her and the research team. Sister Abigail gave a resume of what characterizes the activities and way of life of the people living in this community. She indicated that:
“Agriculture is the major occupation of most of the inhabitants. Commonly cultivated are potatoes, apples, peaches and vegetables such as spinach and cabbages”.
The respondent suggested that these activities are the most dominant in the area. Her reasons included the fact that the majority of the youth have been educated up to secondary level only. Insufficient educational institutions in the area and the costly nature of tuition fees discourage most youth to go to school. She added therefore that:
“Education is for a few privileged who can afford both tuition fees and means of transportation to study in distant schools far away from home. Due to lack of education, many youth are unskilled and therefore cannot acquire jobs, for the few lucky ones, the resort to minimal jobs such as taxi drivers, cleaners, and security workers among others”.
The responded rounded up this session, emphasizing the need for government intervention;
providing free aids, the construction of more health units, schools, and job opportunity for this community. She also stressed the need for the men to create a men’s league that will educate men on how to assume their family responsibilities and protect their women and sisters in the community. She cited the example of the Kiyisa Men’s Project founded in 2002.
The initiative group promotes capacity building among the youths and serves as an employment agent and also Civil societies like churches and other support groups, shop owners from time to time provided food parcels, blankets and other necessities to the locals especially during winter.
The responses from the CHH founder and owner, provided a sufficient background to the researcher and an understanding of CHH as well as its mission and vision and the outcomes of the activities and assistances offered to the orphans and vulnerable children.
The second visit to KwaSani was from 4-6 September 2013. This time the research team visited CHH. This session was quite interactive; the administrative head of CHH gave a background history of the orphanage for the second time and welcomed several questions from the research students. These investigations and findings served as a torch light to the research proper, dealing with the exploration of the holistic development and well-being of children living in the orphanage in KwaSani municipality. The research team interacted with the children, building familiar relationships. This was to enhance a cordial and relaxed environment for the children to freely give their views about their way of life in the orphanage.
The third visit to KwaSani municipality was from 23 – 24 October 2013. The research team during this phase critically examined the living conditions of these children at CHH so as to effectively evaluate their holistic development and wellbeing as well as shared activities and feedback from the children’s focus group. This process was facilitated with the help of questionnaires comprising of different categories, a breakdown of their holistic life which included questions regarding their health, types of food they eat, how often they eat, their cognitive life, under what circumstances they study, if they were happy living at the foster home with foster parents, questions to their security and safety, their history about their parents, relatives and loved ones, questions about their emotional, psychological and physical satisfaction. During this session, with the help of the administrators and staff of CHH, the children were assembled in the orphanage hall in successful sessions as they returned back to school in order to be questioned by the research team. Every child between the ages of four and eighteen was given a questionnaire to answer and the intent consent form was signed by the administrative head of the organization on behalf of the children in his capacity as the legal guardian of the children. With the help of the foster parents, staff and researchers, the younger ones were assisted in filling in the questionnaires and the older children single handedly answered all the questions. With the supervision of the research team, proper checks were affected to make sure that all the questions were attended to by the children.
The session was more relaxed and playful such that the children felt comfortable enough to express their views without being influenced or pressured. This was critical to the full process because the data gotten from these children determined the outcomes of the entire project.
Happily all the children filled in the questionnaires and returned them to the research team.
Information was not only gotten from the questionnaires, judging from the children’s behaviors, they expressed happiness, a sense of belonging; feeling free, secure and at home.
They also demonstrated love for one another. A touching scenario was when one of the HIV infected children was reminded and encourage by fellow peers that it was time to go and get his medication. Brotherly to sisterly love and concern for one another was also remarkable.
This session ended with words of appreciation from the head of the research team, thanking the organization for making the hall available and for organizing these children to be interviewed.
The subsequent visit was made to CHH to get feedback from the children on how they felt about the research as well as providing the outcome of study to them