June News

We have had a surge of domestic violence happening to our moms these past few weeks. Is it that we are just now becoming aware of it, or is it a sign of times getting worse for our women?

First, there was the woman I told of in the previous blog. Zoleka travelled to the Eastern Cape to attend her funeral which was well-attended. It just makes one wonder where all these ‘friends’ were when she was desperately alone and afraid, that she called her PMTCT counselor her best friend.

Since earlier this year, a quiet 16-year-old girl has been attending our support group in Macassar. She never missed a week and might say nothing, but we saw her every Friday. Let’s call her Shani. Shani gave birth to her first baby, a boy, in April. He is a lovely, beautiful big boy. The birth was difficult since she is so young and he is so big. Shani left her family, gave up her schooling, basically gave up her whole life, including her religion for a guy. She is in love, and her boyfriend tells her that being a Rastafarian is great; it is the way to be. And at 16 we love so fiercely, so immensely, so passionately that of course it is easy to take advantage of. A few weeks ago his violence against her escalated to the point that he took the baby, threw it up against the ceiling and let it drop to the floor. Shani was forced to grab her broken baby and run barefoot for help. They spent some time in the hospital and baby has miraculously survived and is now back home. How will boyfriend hurt or threaten Shani next time?

We always tell our mothers that the way to hurt them most is by hurting their children. This is the most extreme form of abuse – not only towards the child, but especially towards the mother. Our instincts as mothers are to protect our children, and what do we do when the person we love, trust and rely on for our safety threaten that of our children?

The important aspect of our groups is that we not only focus on pregnancy and breastfeeding, but cover all aspects of being a woman and being a responsible citizen.

We foster and encourage friendships, because we know that often women are lonely and isolated, even in the midst of a township. I want to promote a sisterhood, a society where we always have someone to turn to for advice, for help and for company. This will ensure the safety of our women and children, safety from abuse but also from lack of knowledge.

Still praying

It is hard when you realize that sometimes our hands are cut off, we have no control over what decisions our moms make when they leave our room.

This morning I had to console a heartbroken Zoleka. Zoleka is our new employee, a phenomenal group facilitator, well trained and versed in breastfeeding training and specializing in mother-to-child-transmission and the prevention thereof. I am so proud of her and to have her as a part of our team.

Zoleka received a phone call at 4am this morning, informing her that one of her patients died last night. She was shot by her husband. She was 5 months pregnant and the mother of a 2-year-old. A few months ago she confessed to Zoleka that upon divulging to her husband that she is HIV positive, he was furious and threatened to reject her. Zoleka thought the issues have since been resolved. I asked Zoleka why the victim’s sister thought to call her. Apparently Zoleka’s number was saved in the woman’s cell phone as “my best friend”. She is her breastfeeding and PMTCT (prevention of mother to child transmission) counselor, she became a confidante, but they were not friends. Zoleka had not seen her since March. What a sign of a sad society when a woman is so isolated that she has absolutely no-one to call a friend, that her best friend is the person talking to her at the clinic. Why are so many of our women so secluded, so cut off from any form of support? What has happened to Ubuntu, or is that just a political term, trying to fool us into thinking we live in a beautiful society of peace and love and equality?

I want to scream from the rooftops: NO! NO! NO!

This murder affects so much more than the victim, her live child and the unborn one. It reflects failure on so many levels, perhaps even ours, for not recognizing the signs of a woman in a life-threatening cycle of violence. A year ago (30 June 2011) I wrote that sometimes it gets unbearable, which is why we just work harder, speak louder, love stronger and pray constantly. Still true.

May News

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.

April News

Our volunteers meet hundreds of moms each month and it is not often that we see them again once they leave the hospital. We hope to make a difference to their birth stories, to honour this wonderful day and to recognise that every birth is a celebration and is important. Do you remember the day your babies were born? Ask that question to every mother (and father) you meet and they can describe to you in vivid detail the stories of their babies’ births. And that’s as it should be! These are the biggest moments of our lives, and meant to be remembered and retold.

It is not any different for the moms we meet in the public hospitals. Sometimes it is so hectically busy in the maternity ward that we seem to forget what big moments we share with these mothers.

Imagine the scene: 6 women in various stages of labour, 2 of them in the final stages with babies about to be born, 15 mothers who have given birth in the past 12 hours, some by caesarean, who need extra attention, plus 10 women with special needs, kangaroo babies. This scene is not spectacular by any means, but it is the almost daily scene of our maternity ward at Helderberg Hospital. It is here where you will find our wonderful midwives, 2 per shift, and staff nurses doing their thing in calm, quiet efficiency. A lot is said and criticised about sisters and nurses in our public healthcare system, and I know that often you will find inadequacy and disrespect, but I have to insist that we have never witnessed that in our 2 hospitals, Helderberg and Macassar Day Hospital. The patients here are treated with kindness and patience. This is not to say that there are never tense moments, if a baby is in distress and needs to be delivered quickly and a mother is not cooperating, sometimes staff needs to act in a strict manner. Also, remember that the level of education of our mothers is often below standard and it can be terribly frustrating having to work with them.

In May we celebrate Midwives’ Day and Nurses Day and I think they definitely deserve a HUGE thank you for all they do! And also a big thanks for allowing our volunteers and visitors in their wards. I do hope that we don’t get in the way, that we are an asset to the ward and that we will foster this friendship between Bosom Buddies and our hospitals for a very long time.

Also in May it’s time again for Bosom Buddies’ big annual fundraiser. This year we are doing a dinner, dance and auction with a Dazzle theme. So put on your dancing shoes, throw on the bling and come join us for a night of gourmet food, excellent wine, exciting goodies on auction an amazing DJ and a cash bar! Tickets are only R200 per person, so no excuse for not being there….unless you live in another country that is!

Please contact me at doulafrances@thembalitsha.org.za or 0827691380 or check out the events section on Thembalitsha’s facebook page for more information. We hope to see you there!

March News

support group in full swing

Bosom Buddies was founded 6 years ago when founder Mel Novitzkas was training to be a doula (childbirth companion). In her practical training at Helderberg Hospital, she realised how many women have nothing when they go to the hospital to give birth. Nothing for their babies, or for themselves in terms of sanitary products. In South Africa, you often see women wearing towels or thick blankets around their bodies. These are to protect them from their monthly bleeding. A simple thing such as sanitary towels becomes a luxury in certain poor communities. An essential after giving birth, a packet of sanitary towels will be found as a part of our dignity gift to new moms who give birth at our local public hospital. In her Bosom Buddies bag, she will find everything for at least a comfortable first day with her baby – a set of newborn clothes, a baby blanket, some nappies, sanitary towels and perhaps a baby product or soft toy if we have one.

When I did my training as a doula 2 years ago, I realised how many women KNOW nothing when they go to the hospital to give birth. Nothing about pregnancy, how to care for herself, nothing about the birth process and very little except for myths and hearsay about caring for a newborn. I realised that so many women struggle with long and fear-filled labours, simply because their adrenaline levels are so high as to prolong the labour. Adrenaline is the enemy of a smooth labour. Women need a safe space, to feel loved and empowered in order for their endorphins to do what they’re meant to do in terms of pain relief. Which is why I am such a passionate teacher. Yes, it is terribly tough at times, since it is a struggle against ancient beliefs and influences and even culture. In South Africa, our babies are not only dying from HIV/Aids, but from misinformation, and lack of knowledge. Babies are started on solids at 1 or 2 weeks of age. Mix-feeding (mixing of breastmilk and formula) is prevalent. Our babies are dying from gastro and other illnesses that are 100% preventable!
Our mothers need to be empowered and taught. We need to constantly struggle along with them and, above all, teach and love unconditionally.

Thank you to all our friends who support our antenatal courses and breastfeeding mothers’ support groups.

Also a huge big thank you to our friends from Australia, Angel Baby, who have sent AUD$158 all the way from there. What a fantastic gesture of support and love for our Babies Born Sleeping initiative. Thank you Angel Baby. This means a lot to us.

February News

A friend asked me recently if the work I do doesn’t get me down. Well, to answer this is complicated. I love and have a real passion for Bosom Buddies. I love meeting the new moms, collecting their stories and cooing over the babies. I enjoy praying for them and obviously it is a pleasure to bless them with our Bosom Buddies bag. I have grown quite fond of the staff at both Helderberg Hospital and Macassar and try to foster and grow these relationships as colleagues and friends. My volunteers are priceless and my staff is precious and valued. Fundraising is hard, but we have been provided for every single month and have not once gone without something we need. Just last month we ran out of sanitary towels (one of our biggest expenses and an absolute essential in our bags) and had to go without for two hospital visits before a mountain full arrived at our door! You see, God always provides. Tuli asked me in the morning if it is time to start praying for sanitary pads and I said I’ve been praying for weeks but please go ahead. That afternoon the truck pulled in, a literal answer to our prayer.

I am asked how I can bear dressing a stillborn baby or endure a grieving mother’s tears on my shoulder. It is by the grace of God only that I have grown strong. I take myself away from the grimness of the sluice room, the baby wrapped in plastic surrounded by dirty laundry and am thankful for the opportunity that this child will at least have a last gentle, loving touch. That he/she is leaving evidence of a LIFE. I take his/her footprint to be remembered by the mother, that she will have something to cling to, to cry over and to remember her baby by. This process is somehow liberating and comforting.

What does get me down is ignorance and prejudice and intolerance. People are often quick to judge and condemn, without sufficient information or a full, clear picture, without having walked in the other person’s shoes. Statements like “they should all be sterilised” or “why do they keep having babies when they can’t afford them?” or “if you can’t feed them, don’t breed them” are the worst forms of bigotry and narrow-mindedness I have come across. What about “it is probably better that the baby did not survive?"

Is my grief more severe, true or deeper than yours simply because I am white middle-class and have a university degree? Do ‘these people’ deserve their children less than you or I? Do ‘they’ deserve inferior medical care and scary, horrible birth experiences? Do ‘they’ need counselling after the loss of a child?

Strange that in all my time spent in townships, gang-filled and traditionally ‘unsafe’ areas, I have been welcomed courteously and it is only in the suburban malls and tea rooms that I come across this small-mindedness and bias. Strange and sad.

Cape Summer Trail Series Championship

WE DID IT!







Our MILES FOR MOMS team ran a very successful final two races in the Cape Summer Trail Series of 2012.



Race 4 on Wednesday 1 Feb, at Tygerberg, was once again a challenge in that the wind was howling. We met some our steepest ascents and yet again one of our team members was sick on the mountain. Well done to Jan Scholtz who perservered in spite of feeling miserable and finished his race. This goes to prove that these runs are definitely not a joke and a real, definite, absolute challenge.

For our final race on 5 Feb at Oak Valley, Grabouw, we were joined by some friends and our team was a force to reckon with! Thanks to all friends of Bosom Buddies for joining us, in particular Neil Cox who ran along for 3 races, Emily House, who did her speedy thing at both Grabouw events and all the other happy faces on the picture above.

Three of us qualified for the championship medal and in case you were waiting for final results before you sponsor us, here it is:
Anthony Geard ran a total of 64.85 km and placed 17th in his category for the championship.
Ben van Rensburg also ran 64.8 km and placed 26th for the championship (please bear in mind that Ben had to keep me company for 2 runs!).
Myself, Frances, missed race 2, so my total km's are 51.6 km and I have placed 20th in the championship!
Adventure boot camp trainer, Miena van Zyl, did an incredible time of 2 hrs 49 minutes for the 25 km xterra super long run and have an amazing 7th place for this race!

If you still don't know how to sponsor us, follow this link:


http://www.givengain.com/activist/69386/projects/2172/

Or you can go straight to the Bosom Buddies bank account with your EFT. Please put as reference your name, as well as the person you sponsor.

Bosom Buddies
Nedbank
Acc: 1141018144
Branch: 114145

Why are we raising this money? 2012 is the year of empowerment for Bosom Buddies! We have developed a fantastic antenatal course, aimed specifically at women from our local townships. We are starting our first course in Sir Lowry's Pass Village on 21 February with 10 pregnant women from the village. We are facilitating a support group as well as an antenatal course in Macassar and aim to grow further into our townships and Grabouw from middle of 2012. In order to do this, we have employed a wonderful experienced and gifted woman. I am raising funds to cover her salary for the year, as well as transport and printing costs for the manuals.
This is more than a dream, this is a passion and a calling. We NEED to do this. Our volunteers meet so many women with premature babies, stillbirths or infant deaths. A lot of these cases can be prevented by teaching women how to properly take care of themselves and their babies during pregnancy and in the early months.

Please help us fulfill this, let us reach our goal.