Catholic nun Sister Sally Duigan believes that these are the essential ingredients needed to stabilise the AIDS epidemic that is threatening to overwhelm communities in the far Northern Province.

Born in Australia Sr Sally has previously worked with Australian Aborigines and in the Phillipines. She has been in South Africa for the past 13 years and more specifically in the merciless Northern Province.

“We have a wealth of fruit in the Tzaneen area, if it could reach the people it would make a huge difference,” she says.

During her time as principal at St Brendans in Dwars River between Pietersburg and Louis Trichardt, Sr Sally saw the first signs that the AIDS epidemic was going to hit the province in a big way.

“We began to see we were attending more and more funerals of our children – the parents of our learners were dying, the mothers, the fathers were dying at a very young age leaving children.

“So these children then became orphans.”

Last year Sr Sally took “time-out and I decided that I really wanted to devote my whole life to trying to help people affected and infected with HIV/AIDS, because I think we as a Church need to be present where there are people who suffer.

“It’s not just a job, but something that requires total commitment and a lot of compassion, a lot of love and the congregation I belong to, the Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart has as its main mission and focus is compassion and love, especially for the most the most downtrodden and oppressed on this earth.”

Sr Sally feels strongly that HIV/AIDS is something that brings out in her what she at a very young age devoted her life to doing. “I have been in different countries and this is what I feel, this is something that calls for the kind of response that I feel I can offer.”

Sr Sally’s “time-out” led to her changing direction and becoming the HIV/AIDS co-ordinator for the Tzaneen Diocese that covers the whole of the far north beyond Pietersburg, remote rural areas that have mostly been forgotten.

There are 12 parishes in the diocese and each parish has a variety of projects specifically dealing with HIV/AIDS.

In some places they have clinics, 24-hour maternity clinics, schools with special projects for AIDS orphans, homebased care projects in very remote places and development projects.

“I feel what we are doing is just tipping the iceberg of the suffering of the people,” Sr Sally adds.

One of the things that Bishop (Hugh) Slattery is really concentrating on and promoting in his Diocese is “Education for Life” among the youth.

The Education for Life programme challenges the youth from a very young age look at behaviour change and encourages them to join different clubs that form part of the programme. After completing the programme the youngsters can join clubs such as Adventure Unlimited that concentrates on human development, ongoing support and sport.

Although the main focus is education Sr Sally finds herself doing mostly poverty relief and assisting people with healthcare needs.

“It is quite overwhelming.when you face the suffering and you see what needs to be done we really need a lot of support, but I do believe there is a lot of goodwill in the community – once we do get people together and we are able to move around and help groups to get organised and then offer support I think we can make a difference in the far north.”

Sr Sally believes that Government is contributing, but adds that the social workers are completely overwhelmed. “They were never prepared for this kind of pandemic.”

An additional problem confronting Sr Sally is the fact that many people in the far north equate AIDS with witchcraft.

This she believes causes the family break ups in many of the cases.

“There are accusations made when a person is discovered to have AIDS, there are accusations made as to who gave that person AIDS and very often it is a close family member who is accused of witchcraft and then the extended family network breaks down and this is why there is so much pain and suffering because the extended family which would traditionally look after the orphans and the people who were sick stay away from that family because they have been accused by someone of that family that they have used witchcraft to make this person sick.

“So this is an issue that we to face. I don’t know how we are going to break through that. It is something that affects us very much here in the Northern Province.”

Does Sr Sally see a light at the end of the tunnel?

“I believe we need to focus on people we come across in our daily travels and give our attention to them…if we start to see what we are not doing, we become paralysed and then we are unable to do anything. As it is, we are doing something…this has the ripple effect of making other people think that they can do something too.

“There are people who are willing to do something, but the enormity has hit us very quickly and I don’t think anyone was really prepared for it.”

* Duigan can be reached on 015-307-4233
– Health-e News Service