I am excited to be traveling to South Africa in 2017 for 6 months with a charity called Tearfund. Tearfund's aim is to tackle poverty where it is worst, by working with the local communities to help them become self sufficient.

As a volunteer for them I will be taking part in many different activities working with a partner charity called Ethembeni, which is Zulu for 'place of hope'. Ethembeni aims to bring hope to the township of Mpophomeni by:

>Family Support - identifying and providing support and services to vulnerable household members impacted by HIV and/or TB. This includes home based care, community level care and a health care project aimed at mothers.

>Prevention - to enable and empower families and individuals to have knowledge, attitudes, behaviours and resources to prevent themselves being infected with HIV or TB, being re-infected or infecting others. This is done through counselling, support groups, testing and mentoring.

>Development - to run programmes that enable families to become stronger, more resiliant and less reliant on Ethembeni's services. This is done through skills and enterprise development.

Whilst I'm there I will be helping with education support in schools, teaching english and maths to students of all ages, visiting people suffering from HIV/AIDS in their own homes, and running small social activities.

I'm working hard to raise funds for this trip, but if anyone would like to contribute financially i'd be grateful. I'd also really value prayer support as I prepare and whilst I'm there.
Thank you for reading my JustGiving page!