Total
2005 2004
2003
l!3Frequen y • Percentage
2000
1999
160 140 120 100
8060 40 20
o
3.6. Current challenges facing EC
Most of these activities which ECAP uns require extensive funding, technical expertise, medical equipment, and knowledge. 11 these areas represent opportunities for ECAP, but, its limitations of resources and c pacity pose a big challenge. ECAP is a non-profit making organization and as such, it does not generate its own income to sustain its services. All the training ECAP runs 'n churches is done at its cost own and no church pays for the training. Th first major hallenge is that in the early days, around 2000 to 2003, ECAP, after training congregati ns would recruit fifteen volunteers to go for home- based care practical training at Co munity Care Project at the Project Gateway's Bethany house. Then the volunteers ere receiving infection control kits which included disinfectants, gloves, soap for use in athing and cleaning the patients. They were also given food parcels to give to people t ey visited during their home-based care. All these items came from Community Care Project. Thus ECAP's ultimate goal of seeing
221 Ibid
churches initiate AIDS related project was being accomplished through this partnership with Community Care Project which ame to an end in 2004. Liebowitz is right that in some cases FBOs have been able to eet the challenges of funding, medical equipment, technical expertise through collaborat on with NGOs, government, and other FBOs. For example, FBOs in Uganda have een more successful in building collaborative relationships with other groups to su port their activities.222 Thus true for ECAP which collaborated with Community Care Pr ~ect (CCP). However, when the Community Care Project stopped giving the volunte s supplies, this affected the community based organizations (CBOs) which voluntee, s were establishing in their communities. During my interview with Benson, the curren manager of Community Care Project, I wanted to know why his project stopped giving s pplies to volunteers. He responded,
When we began doing the project of CP going in the communities to clean people, people were sympathetic so they could give food a d money, so one could easily get food parcels to give to the people in need. Now with time that ype of funding dwindled, they started going down and HIY became more and more a professional ype of work. You can't easily get things as it used to be. At that time I was also working more wit CCP so we felt we needed to strategize to begin to equip the families rather than just giving food p reels all the time. So that is what brought about the stoppage, not that it stopped completely because even up to now food parcels are still given but only given to very needy people.m
The second challenge facing ECAP i that CCP has stopped receiving volunteers from ECAP for home-based care training. This has happened because CCP has changed its strategy for training volunteers.
These days CCP is not training the pe pIe as we used to do the training; so most of the training is done in the families because we need 0 equip the family rather than us going to do it because it is becoming a burden so there is that cha ge. So if the church is trained we need to follow people who are infected and affected and then beg n doing our training because our training has changed. There is training in well ness, training in A Ys to know how to give medication and take care of the people.224
222 Liebowitz 1.2004Faith-based organizatio sand HIV/aids in Uganda and Kwazulu-Natalfinal report.
Health Economics and HIY/AIDS Research ivision, University of KwaZulu-Natal. p.23
223 Okyere-Manu, interview by Charles Mand on 20/09/06 at Project Gateway.
224 Ibid
The third challenge is that ECAP, a er CCP stopped supplying volunteers with kits, forged a relationship with the clinics hich were supplying them with the kits. However, clinics have started training their own aregivers and as such ECAP has to supply its own kits to its volunteers, which it does ot have. Since it has helped initiate as many as thirty-five community projects aroun Pietermaritzburg, it can not meet the demand.
However, it gets some assistance wit regard to the kits from the Department of Health and CINDI, though not enough to mee the demand.
The fourth challenge is the shortage 0 staff. There are only three staff now at ECAP, the manager, training coordinator, and ad inistrator. They used to be five workers but two found employment elsewhere so the left ECAP. Durning our interview the training coordinator said that he is doing the ork of three people. All these challenges impact greatly on the output ofECAP among ts beneficiaries.
3.7. Summary of the chapter
This chapter has looked, rather brie y, at the history of ECAP. It has attempted to explore the origins of ECAP which ,oes as far back as 1997. ECAP has gone through many changes and at no time has it een able to accomplish what it has desired fully mainly because, as a non-profit organ'zation, it has to rely on funding from donors. Now the donor community is becoming 0 erwhe1med as well with the increased burden of HIV and AIDS globally. This has hus affected ECAP's output and staff capacity.
However, ECAP has not given up b t continues to provide services that are within its reach.