Dazzle, Dance and Dine for Bosom Buddies, our annual fundraiser was a huge success. Many thanks to all who helped with the organising. This month I would like to share my speech with our readers:
It is not easy what we do. My colleagues will confirm that sometimes we get overwhelmed by the need, we get saddened by the circumstances and our hearts ache with the hugeness of our task. It is only by the grace of God that we get up each day and continue doing what we do. We are a Christian organisation and all the honour and thanks I have to lay at God’s feet.
Bosom Buddies was born out of the need of the women who give birth at our local public hospitals. 500 or more women give birth at Helederberg Hospital alone each month, many of whom do not have the essentials they need for themselves or their babies. We fervently collect and fundraise in order to provide women with the famous Bosom Buddies bag. This bag of ours contains a set of newborn clothes, some nappies, a pack of sanitary towels for mom, a blanket for baby and a treat or a baby product if we have. We now distribute between 400 and 500 of these bags each month. Each of the women who receive this gift, also spends time with one of our 20+ volunteers, who encourages her, congratulates her with the birth of her gorgeous baba and prays for her. I think these statistics are staggering. Last year alone we saw over 5000 new mothers.
As a passionate teacher and feminist, when I started as volunteer for Bosom Buddies, the need for the education and enablement of our mothers was identified. We were encountering too many voiceless, confused and fearful women in the labour wards, with way too many stillbirths and infant deaths. Hence the drive for antenatal education and breastfeeding counselling and support was started. It took trial and error, but the support group format is tremendously successful. Creating a space for women to come together, a safe space to share and encourage EACH OTHER. We facilitate these groups, we educate, minister and love without judgment or criticism. But the thought is that when we pack up and leave, the women have formed lifelong friendships and supportive bonds.
We work closely with the local clinics and hospitals; in fact, Bosom Buddies is the only civilian organisation to serve on several breastfeeding committees and forums in the Helderberg. In this partnership between public healthcare and Bosom Buddies, we aim to form a holistic care for our mothers. But our groups are about more than antenatal and baby care, they are about life and lifestyle, finding the voice in the mother. I cannot believe tha,t in this century, we still live in a society where the woman is essentially voiceless, often a victim of violence. Why does a video of a young girl being gang raped have to go viral before anyone notices what is going on in our townships? I encourage our women to know their rights, to demand quality service and to ask questions. Basically, to form a part of the movement of responsible, active citizenship.
In Cape Town over 500 babies are abandoned each year. Why does this happen? We need to understand the level of desperation a mother reaches to get to this point. I really believe that if she had the proper help and support, perhaps from a group such as ours, she would have had someone to turn to, to help. Yes, we talk about adoption and yes, we encourage sterilisation, but this is not always appropriate. What is appropriate? We offer friendship, knowledge and hope.
Hope to
1.
The HIV positive mother who fears transmitting the disease to her child,
2.
The 15-year-old mother who is still a child herself.
3.
The mother who is having her 6th child because nobody has ever spoken to her about sterilisation or birth control.
4.
The abused mother who fears her own home and what might happen every night.
5.
Even the mother who lives on the street and and gives birth to a baby with foetal alcohol syndrome.
6.
And especially to the desperate, the depressed, the isolated mother who feels she has no other choice but to abandon her baby on a garbage dump or throw it off a cliff.
Thank you for taking this journey with us and for partnering with us on our way. By the end of 2012, we will have support groups, accessible to any woman in all the areas in the whole of the Helderberg basin, all the way from Grabouw to Macassar and Blackheath. Our ultimate aim is to significantly reduce stillbirths and infant deaths and instances of baby and child abandonment in our area.
Because what I have learnt, is that sometimes a hand to hold and heart to understand is all we need.
