In May of 2008 I travelled to Mpumalanga Province in the northeast region of South Africa.  I went under the aegis of Emoyeni USA, a Massachusetts faith-based relief organization that provides shelter, food, clothing and medical care to the region’s population of AIDS orphans.  There are forty thousand orphans in the province.  The scourge of AIDS is growing faster in South Africa than in any other country in the world.  Where the nuclear families have been shattered by the disease, the extended families have been unable to absorb the sheer numbers of parentless children, many of whom have been neglected or abused.

Working closely with Emoyeni’s South African personnel, teams of Americans volunteered in the township of Badplaas.  Some volunteers distributed blankets, school uniforms and clothing to families and orphan houses around the township while others worked in the schools and in the day care center. 

Daily the medical team treated hundreds of local residents, both children and adults, who would otherwise have no access to medical care. 

The construction team built, in two weeks, a concrete block house with running water and electricity for a woman who housed and cared for fourteen orphans.  A few of the children were her own grandchildren but others were orphans she had taken in from the surrounding neighborhood.  Sadly, during the period of our efforts in Badplaas, the woman herself was diagnosed with the HIV virus. 

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