The InVisionary
Many of you at InVision know very little about this special partnership, so I hope to provide you the background and advise you of the changes for 2025. Please join me as we go back to the origins of the Partnership, starting in 2007.
I was invited to join a small group (4 people from the ID/A service community) in visiting South Africa. Our objective was to explore how human services were evolving in a country that had little infrastructure but where people - as all people do - were trying to create sustainable services for those who were in need of extra community support. We did not have any preconceived expectations, except that we were committed to exploring partnerships where mutual interest developed.
This first trip, which entailed visiting some 15 organizations, demonstrated the deep poverty but also the resilience and determination of the South African people. Our group was struck by the brilliant design of the Isibindi programme (now called Risiha), developed to support child-headed households in the wake of the HIV/AIDS crisis. At that time, millions of children had lost their parents to HIV/AIDS. Young people, even at the tender age of 9 years old, were left to be responsible for younger siblings with no parental support. Isibindi Child and Youth Care Workers provided basic supports to these families, with a level of enthusiasm and desire to learn that was stunning to witness. The program was developed by the National Association of Child and Youth Care Workers (NACCW), a non-governmental organization (NGO). It was fascinating to visit the NGOs that were implementing Isibindi, and to see many of the same slogans and mottos of the US human service systems incorporated into our own posters and materials.
One of the visits with families and child and youth care workers in the Isibindi programme, was with Tlangelani Community Empowerment Centre in Limpopo Province, located in the most remote area of South Africa. There we met a family of 9 children whose parents had both died from AIDS. In preparation for our visit, the Child and Youth Care Workers responded to our desire to take something to the family and proceeded to help us to fill grocery carts laden with food. We were thinking this might be a bit “over the top” but we dutifully paid for the groceries and drove carefully up the dirt roads to the family home. We were met by the children, all their faces expressionless as they waited for us on the stoop. We offered our gifts of food and chatted (through the workers) briefly before we thanked them and left. Only then did we learn that this was the first food this family would have had in over a week!
It was the impact of meeting this family, and then seeing the efforts of the Child and Youth Care Workers in trying to help the children, that has stuck with me for all the last 14 years. Even while we have worked with other NGOs in South Africa as well, we have continuously sent funds in support of the Isibinidi programme at Tlangelani.
Some of the other programs we have helped to fund are Mascinsedane Care Home, Chance Children’s Home, the Western Cape Forum for Intellectual Disability, Educo Afrika, and Aspire Youth. Another notable initiative was the staff exchange with Ruth Bantham, who spent over a year working at InVision in a DSP role and returned to South Africa to take on a role as director of a program supporting children with intellectual disability.
All the financial support we provided to our South Africa Partners came from you – the employees of InVision Human Services. Over these 14 years, I have been extremely proud of this continuous support, and I have had the opportunity to return to visit frequently during that time, hearing the gratitude and appreciation of those who have been recipients of your generosity.
As with all things over time, change is inevitable, and so we are approaching a time when we will no longer send funds to Tlangelani. While we will no longer send donations, I hope everyone at InVision Human Services will hold a special place in our hearts for the wonderful people with whom we have become such good friends over all these years. I know that I will, and I hold a great deal of gratitude for all of you have had joined in this effort.
I was invited to join a small group (4 people from the ID/A service community) in visiting South Africa. Our objective was to explore how human services were evolving in a country that had little infrastructure but where people - as all people do - were trying to create sustainable services for those who were in need of extra community support. We did not have any preconceived expectations, except that we were committed to exploring partnerships where mutual interest developed.This first trip, which entailed visiting some 15 organizations, demonstrated the deep poverty but also the resilience and determination of the South African people. Our group was struck by the brilliant design of the Isibindi programme (now called Risiha), developed to support child-headed households in the wake of the HIV/AIDS crisis. At that time, millions of children had lost their parents to HIV/AIDS. Young people, even at the tender age of 9 years old, were left to be responsible for younger siblings with no parental support. Isibindi Child and Youth Care Workers provided basic supports to these families, with a level of enthusiasm and desire to learn that was stunning to witness. The program was developed by the National Association of Child and Youth Care Workers (NACCW), a non-governmental organization (NGO). It was fascinating to visit the NGOs that were implementing Isibindi, and to see many of the same slogans and mottos of the US human service systems incorporated into our own posters and materials.
One of the visits with families and child and youth care workers in the Isibindi programme, was with Tlangelani Community Empowerment Centre in Limpopo Province, located in the most remote area of South Africa. There we met a family of 9 children whose parents had both died from AIDS. In preparation for our visit, the Child and Youth Care Workers responded to our desire to take something to the family and proceeded to help us to fill grocery carts laden with food. We were thinking this might be a bit “over the top” but we dutifully paid for the groceries and drove carefully up the dirt roads to the family home. We were met by the children, all their faces expressionless as they waited for us on the stoop. We offered our gifts of food and chatted (through the workers) briefly before we thanked them and left. Only then did we learn that this was the first food this family would have had in over a week! It was the impact of meeting this family, and then seeing the efforts of the Child and Youth Care Workers in trying to help the children, that has stuck with me for all the last 14 years. Even while we have worked with other NGOs in South Africa as well, we have continuously sent funds in support of the Isibinidi programme at Tlangelani.
Some of the other programs we have helped to fund are Mascinsedane Care Home, Chance Children’s Home, the Western Cape Forum for Intellectual Disability, Educo Afrika, and Aspire Youth. Another notable initiative was the staff exchange with Ruth Bantham, who spent over a year working at InVision in a DSP role and returned to South Africa to take on a role as director of a program supporting children with intellectual disability.All the financial support we provided to our South Africa Partners came from you – the employees of InVision Human Services. Over these 14 years, I have been extremely proud of this continuous support, and I have had the opportunity to return to visit frequently during that time, hearing the gratitude and appreciation of those who have been recipients of your generosity.
As with all things over time, change is inevitable, and so we are approaching a time when we will no longer send funds to Tlangelani. While we will no longer send donations, I hope everyone at InVision Human Services will hold a special place in our hearts for the wonderful people with whom we have become such good friends over all these years. I know that I will, and I hold a great deal of gratitude for all of you have had joined in this effort.
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