vacant site for first Zimisele building.
Visited another township/informal settlement today with a Project Officer from the AIDS Foundation. Umlazi is located southeast from the Durban City Center. The AIDS Foundation is working with a group of nurses (Zimisele) who are trying to formalize their home based care project for people infected with HIV/AIDS. They are presently renting offices and intend to build an admin building for their organization. We visited a site that the City will donate to them to build their own office space. I spoke with them to get a sense of the type of "starter" building that they want to develop and how they see this project changing in the future. It is a small site, that they currently are using as a garden and kitchen. They have a full financial committment from "Operation Jump Start" - another foundation that funds building projects.
Zimisele is currently a small community based organization, but with the help of the AIDS Foundation they will be able to apply for grants in order to expand on the services that they offer community members. I attended a grant writing workshop for the women of Zimisele by the AIDS Foundation. These women have the basic infrastructure in place to do great community work. I would love to help them in the development of their first community center.
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