Our team can be found in the community every day, during this field work we regularly come across people that urgently need our assistance. Our field team will always make time to attend to the people in need. But this week during one of our house visits we met a family that required our immediate attention. We were asked to urgently assist.
Our team got introduced to the father of the household who was seriously ill and had to be transported to the hospital immediately. Due to the absence of id documents it turned out to be a challenge. the problem was exacerbated by the absence of money for transport to hospital. The ambulance services in the deeply rural communities we work in are often unreliable, unfortunately sometimes people have to wait for hours or even days before an ambulance arrives at the scene.
After several conversations with the people living in the homestead our social worker found out that the whole family, including 6 children, had not eaten for days.
With the help of the department of Social Development we managed to organise the identity documents required so that the father was able to go to the hospital. One of our partner organisations was able to assist with urgent transport to the hospital. With the help of a private donor we were able to assist the family with a food parcel as emergency relief.
After the hospital visit the father was diagnosed with drug resistant TB, fortunately he has stabilised and is slowly recovering at home.
Unfortunately these situations are not a rare occurrence for us, these are the challenges we face almost daily. Let alone the stresses and difficulties the families are facing in these situations.
AL Organisation will provide assistance and counselling for this family, our social workers will monitor the situation and assist the family on their way to recovery and towards a situation where the family can sustain themselves again.
Due to these severe cases we have identified the need for a Beneficiary Emergency Relief Fund to be able to have the funds available to handle these crisis situations.
Please consider donating towards our Beneficiary Emergency Relief Fund, this will enable us to continue the emergency assistance that is often so urgently required.