About SIMaid

SIMaid is the relief and development arm of SIM Australia. SIMaid manages projects which help the poor and disadvantaged in Africa, Asia and South America to live with wholeness and dignity. Projects are conducted in partnership with local churches, government and NGOs and include

• Literacy and skills development
• Income generation
• Health care including hospitals and HIV projects
• Environmental protection
• Long term food security
• Emergency aid

imagine 2010 issue 02

imagine 2010 issue 01

imagine 2009 issue 03

imagine 2009 issue 02

imagine 2009 issue 01

Justice for the poor of Bangladesh brochure

Gifts to SIMaid are tax deductible

SIM International has over 2000 staff, 170 of whom are Australians, working in 40 countries throughout the developing world. SIM becomes aware of situations where help is desperately needed because we already have people on the ground with established long-term working relationships. To meet these needs, carefully structured projects are planned by people working with nationals amongst local communities.

When emergencies such as flood, earthquake and famine strike, SIMaid and its partner agencies are able to deliver Australian donations direct to the location where they are most effective.

SIMaid was begun by the Australian branch of SIM in 1983. SIMaid’s motto is “aid that gets there”. Accordingly eight-five cents of every dollar donated is expended directly in the field. Each project is carefully monitored and supervised with progress publicised in the quarterly newsletter, imagine.

SIMaid Project Updates / 2010 Projects Requiring Funding

HOPE for AIDS MALAWI Orphan and Vulnerable Children. Project # 96255

There are now over 1.2 million orphans in Malawi, mostly orphaned
by AIDS. Without adequate care and support, many of these children will become marginalised and exposed to child labour and abuse. This project works in partnership with the Africa Evangelical Church (AEC) to support families caring for orphans
through advocacy, nutrition, respite for carers and educational needs to ensure that these children are given a hope and a future. The project is also providing day care for children under five years of
age. The day care centres ensure that this group receives the necessary nutrition and pre-school education, and enables guardians to go to work.

HOPE for AIDS ZIMBABWE Orphan and Vulnerable Children. Project # 96380

The situation for children in Zimbabwe at this time is desperate. This project ministers to the many thousands of children made vulnerable by the HIV and AIDS pandemic in Zimbabwe, either through the loss of a parent, or parents who are sick. These children are kept in school by fee assistance, and provision of school supplies and uniforms. Help for orphans comes in the form of food and seed packs, milk formula and goat milk for infants,

establishment of vegetable gardens, and holiday camps.

Update from Project Manager, Caiphas Ngarivhume

April 2010

Wiseman is eleven years old, and he and his eight year old sister Netsai lost their father to AIDS in 2002 and their mother in 2007. They now live with their elderly grandmother, who has no resources to look after them.

Our volunteers recognised their plight and enrolled them in our Orphans and Vulnerable Children ministry.

Neither of them were attending school and so we put them both on our educational assistance program, and they are now both in school. They are also receiving food from the Famine Relief ministry and from the Orphan and
Vulnerable Children food assistance program. Church members from Mutare recently sent them clothes.

These children now have hope. Wiseman looks forward to being a teacher and Netsai to being a nurse. Their grandmother says she used to worry a great deal for her grandchildren, but since receiving help from the project
she now enjoys peace.

Donations $2 and over are tax deductible

 

SIM's Hope for AIDs Projects in

Burkina Faso, India, Malawi, South Africa, Zimbabwe and International. Scroll down for a brief description of each projects.

Hope for AIDS-BURKINA FASO

Coordination & Equipping of church AIDS program. Project # 93881

Provides for the employment of a full-time coordinator and secretary/accountant who train and equip local church teams to coordinate and promote HOPE for AIDS activities. 525 pastors and their wives from eight regions have been trained this semester through the pastoral care and support project.

Media Development for AIDS – Burkina Faso. Project # 93883

This project concentrates on the
development of media relating
to HIV/AIDS education and a
Biblical view of sexuality. Such
media includes written booklets
and pamphlets in French and
the local Gourma language, audio
cassettes and radio programs
in three local languages,
and video recordings of locally
produced dramas in Gourma.

Pastoral Care and Family Life Education – Burkina Faso

Project # 93913

Trainer couples from the 18 EE/SIM (Eglises Evangélique — SIM’s partner church) church regions were trained in pastoral care of those infected or affected by HIV/AIDS. They have gone on to train the remaining 150 pastor couples who have not received the training in these regions, as well as approximately 300 students in EE/SIM Bible Schools. Teaching modules are available in French and Gourma in a 20 page summary booklet. This will be translated into Fulfulde for the Fulani who make up the 19th region of the church. In addition 2 couples from
each of the 19 church regions have been trained in the first level of marriage and family counselling.

Hope for AIDS - INDIA

ACT (AIDS Control and Treatment) Project # 98346

This project improves awareness of the dangers of HIV/ AIDS to reduce the spread of HIV, minimise the discrimination against persons affected by the virus, care compassionately for those affected. This is achieved via an education program.

Hope for AIDS SHALOM Delhi Project # 98551

Responding to people living with HIV in Delhi and the surrounding areas through: a clinic; volunteers providing home-based care; awareness-raising activities; and training in HIV interventions.

Hope for AIDS - MALAWI

Home-Based Care - Malawi Project # 96253

Care for the chronically sick to improve their quality of life providing some nutritional supplements, basic medicines and nursing care for improved health, psycho-social and spiritual counselling to support patients and carers; and practical assistance.

Hope for AIDS - SOUTH AFRICA

HIV/AIDS Reduction Program - South Africa Project # 97397

Empowering people to look after others in their communities - includes the Deduza Orphan Home, a programme of HIV education at workplaces and resources for community care-giving.

Hope for AIDS - ZIMBABWE

Operation Neighbour Care - Zimbabwe Project # 90209

This project provides for those affected by HIV and AIDS in rural Gokwe, providing ongoing care by trained local volunteers as well as reducing the rate of infection through education, testing, and encouraging safe practices. Orphaned and vulnerable children, and their carers, are given access to food, shelter, education and safe healthy social interaction.

Home-Based Care - Zimbabwe Project # 96381

This project ministers to people living with HIV/AIDS by training church volunteers to minister to sick people and those looking after them. The sick are given assistance with ambulance fees, prescribed medicines, food and hospital fees. Voluntary Counselling and Testing is promoted throughout the community, and those that test HIV positive are encouraged to form support groups to assist in living positively with HIV.

Hope for AIDS - INTERNATIONAL

Hope for AIDS Master - Project # 99383

Resources HOPE for AIDS projects around the world, and directs funds to where they are most needed. Also provides resource materials and coordinates research and training for all participating countries.

Skills Building in AIDS Ministries - Project # 99388

Increasing the skills of SIM and SIM partners in local communities to better implement SIM’s HIV/AIDS response framework – home-based care, orphan care and HIV/AIDS prevention.

HIV/AIDS Learning for Healthy Communities - Project # 99389

Training key SIM-related personnel through a program involving both a theoretical component and practical fieldwork under superviision, to care for HIV/AIDS sufferers and their children.

Donations $2 and over are tax deductible

 

Rebuilding Southern Sudan: Community Health Workers Training School

Project # 98018

Gradually southern Sudanese people are returning to their homeland after the ravages of war. The Grieve Memorial Clinic & Community Health Workers Training School will provide health services and training for the Mabaan peoples and surrounding area. With an emphasis on training of Sudanese locals, graduates

of this school will in turn establish and run village health clinics in villages throughout the region.

Rebuilding Southern Sudan: Safe Drinking Water

Project # 98021

SIMaid is committed to empowerment through partnering with nationals in their own development.

July 2010 Update:

Abel Khamal. My name is Abel.
After I completed my schooling
in an Ethiopian refugee camp, I
worked with SIM in the Sherkole
Refugee camp, teaching literacy
skills. After moving to the Sudan, I again sought employment with SIM and was offered a position with the water project. For the last seven months I have learnt many new skills in my role which involves teaching the community about the effects of dirty water and assisting them to understand procedures that safeguard their health.         

Rebuilding Southern Sudan: Southern Blue Nile Academy

Project # 98019

The Southern Blue Nile Academy is a project to establish a Christian boarding secondary school (high school) in Yabus, Southern Blue Nile, Sudan, to teach and train students to become skillful and men and women of integrity for the service of their nation and to prepare some students for further specialised studies and training in universities and other institutions of higher learning.

Donations $2 and over are tax deductible

 

This project improves human health by reducing arsenic contamination of the groundwater. This is a naturally occurring phenomenon in this region, but many people are not aware of the dangers in drinking water from contaminated wells. We work in with the government and other agencies to distribute arsenic filters to the community at a greatly subsidised rate and provide training and awareness.

Download Justice for the poor of

Bangladesh brochure

Update from Project Manager, Donald Schroeder,
March 2010.

The last quarter has again seen
our staff moving around various
villages and communities within
our project area to complete
arsenic tests for tube wells, educational sessions and to distribute arsenic removal filter to families with high concentrations of
arsenic in their drinking water.

We continue to have a 2-3
month “waiting list” at all of our
Faridpur offices for filters, which is
a good problem to have as it
indicates our message is getting
out and our project has credibility
in the eyes of the local people.

In the past 6 months we have
tested approximately 860 tube
wells for arsenic, of which 625, or
73%, had dangerous levels of arsenic. In addition to screening
tube wells, the staff also ran 137
village based training sessions,
which directly explained the
dangers of arsenic and possible
solutions, to over 2,300 people.

The staff also provided over 710 household arsenic removal filters providing safe drinking water for over 6,100 people. We continue to require an approximate 30% local contribution towards the purchase of each household arsenic removal filter. We believe this local contribution helps to insure that the project beneficiaries will utilise their filters in the intended manner.

Donations $2 and over are tax deductible

 

This project is providing a better
life for farm families through improved nutrition and a reduction
in poverty for the Awi people at Injibara in northern Ethiopia. Project staff work with farmers and government agriculturalists to identify and propagate local plants to be used for food, animal forage,
firewood and other needs. Trials are also conducted on non-local plants that have the potential to yield useful products.

Project Update

Update from Project Manager,

Mark MacLachlan, March 2010.

In the last update we shared about sawmill and the effect that it was having on the local community. We were pleased with the progress of the sawmill, as it was making good lumber by the young men that we trained.

However it has now stopped production due to a disagreement
within the cooperative that is
running the machine. The Government officials are urging us to do all we can so this valuable
resource for the community can
again be used for useful production
of lumber in the countryside.
While one area is in decline another
continues to grow and produce
fruit.

Training continues to be a major
focus with many local farm families continuing to ask for help in pruning and grafting. We supply trained farmers to help when needed. Furthermore ten farm families received training in vegetables and nutrition. Fruit training was given to 67 farm family members from Awi Zone, as well as for 23 farmers that visited our site who were from East Gojjam. We also held training for development agents from the three local districts which are our focal area. Each of the participants in the training had opportunity to receive past copies of the CHEBA newsletter. Sixteen copies of the booklet Planting Tree Crops, in Amharic, were distributed to participants of the workshop.

Donations $2 and over are tax deductible