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WELCOME TO OUR JUNE 2018 NEWSLETTER
Upcoming Events
  • 4 July - Sedgefield United Artists for Charity @ Scarab Red Roof
  • 31 Aug - Songbirds Musical Evening @ Ambleridge
  • 2 Sept - Carpe Musica musical event @ Sedgefield Dutch Reform Church
  • 28 & 29 Sept - Maison Market @ Ambleridge
  • 5 Oct - Cloud 9 dance @ Sedgefield Bowling Club
  • 3 & 4 Nov - Leisure Island Festival Book Sale
Follow our Facebook page for more details or phone the office on (044)384 0593
https://www.facebook.com/HospiceKnysnaSedgefield/
 

Home Based Care worker races for Hospice!

Avela Mpongo is a 28 year old man who works for Knysna Sedgefield Hospice as a Home Based Carer. He is a great team player and definitely sees the value added by our organisation to the most vulnerable members of our local community.

Because we do not charge for the services offered, we rely on donations and the income generated by our charity shops to run. Avela is acutely aware of this and has offered to ride his new bike, donated by the Knysna Rotary Anns in the Momentum Cycle Knysna Tour 2018 to raise much needed funds for Knysna Sedgefield Hospice. He has been sponsored an entry into the 50km road race on Sunday 1st July by Knysna Rotary. Avela would like to ask people to donate towards his activist project to help him to raise money for Knysna Sedgefield Hospice.

Avela lives and works in White Location, Knysna, Western Cape.  He works full day in his local community and visits an average of 6 patients per day in their homes. These are patients with chronic, debilitating illnesses and/or in need of palliative (end of life) care. These patients have been referred to Knysna Sedgefield Hospice by their health care providers and have been seen by one of our nurses to be admitted as a patient. A health care plan has been agreed upon with the patient, their family and our Hospice staff. They are now considered one of your registered patients.

Avela gets to his patients on a bicycle. He sees more patients through getting there on a bike than on foot. Initially he used a yellow bicycle that was donated to Knysna Sedgefield Hospice. This bike didn’t have gears which made it difficult to get up the hills. Kindly, the Rotary Annes donated a brand new mountain bike. He is now able to see more patients than before since he no longer has to get off his bike to push it up the hills. Apart from being able to see more patients by accessing them on his bicycle, he has found that his fitness has increased a lot and that he is enjoying cycling for leisure. This budding cyclist has even registered to race in the 50km road Race on the 1st July 2018 in the Momentum Cycle Knysna Tour 2018 after riding in the same event last year, and completing it with no prior training!

Avela’s duties as a Home Based Carer include offering the male patients bed baths, personal grooming which includes cutting fingernails and toenails as well as shaving and/or hair trimming where needed, packing their medications for them, educating his patients and their families about the illness affecting them, the medications needed, the possible side effects of the medication and how to handle them. A large part of the service offered is teaching the family how to care for the ill family member themselves. Patients may also need wounds to be cared for and dressed which Avela is well trained to do. One of our main goals at Knysna Sedgefield Hospice is to encourage independence and resiliency within the patient and family unit and to empower them when it comes to the patient’s illness and care.

What Avela likes most about being a Home Based Carer for Knysna Sedgefield Hospice is helping people to do what they can’t for themselves and educating the family members on how to take care of the patient themselves. While offering practical help and hope in an often hopeless situation, Avela believes in being honest with his patents. He often speaks honestly from his own experience about what a patient and their family can expect with their illness and from Knysna Sedgefield Hospice. Being in his patient’s homes on a regular basis allows him to notice problems early on which makes it easier to deal with before there are complications. Often Avela finds that a patient is feeling down or experiencing side effects of their medication. Sometimes the patients are experiencing break through pain and he can inform the patient’s registered nurses or our medical doctor. He is also amongst the first to pick up problems with the patient and their families and the support being offered to them. In this case, our social worker will be advised and help is offered where necessary.

Avela is a passionate philanthropist who thrives on his interaction with his patients and community. One of the things that he enjoys most about working for Knysna Sedgefield Hospice is that we are a part of the community, part of the voice of the community, right where it’s most needed in the community.  Avela also loves the fact that our 5 star accredited care and support services are offered to all patients for free, regardless of their race, age, gender or religion. Avela truly feels that what he does on a daily basis while working for Knysna Sedgefield Hospice, makes a big impact on those who need it the most. He reports experiencing relief from his patients when they see him walking into their homes. Often, ill people feel hopeless and forgotten by their family and community. Avela strives to help them feel seen and heard and noticed and not a burden on their family or society.

Please like and follow Avela’s Facebook page (Avela Mpongo Hospice Activist) and share it with your friends, particularly cycling enthusiasts. https://www.facebook.com/knysnasedgefieldhospiceactivists/?modal=admin_todo_tour

Join us as we encourage this enthusiastic, fit young man to beat his time from last year while raising money for the priceless services that our organisation offers to our local community, spanning from Wilderness right up to Harkerville.

To make a direct deposit towards his fundraising project, our bank account details are as follows;

Knysna Sedgefield Hospice                                                                                                                       
Nedbank
Current Account
Acc No: 1089003145
Knysna Branch  
SWIFT Code: NEDSZAJJ
Ref: Avela Donor’s name

Or donate through PayFast;

https://www.payfast.co.za/donate/go/knysnasedgefieldhospice/
 
Copyright © *| Knysna Sedgefield Hospice t/a Hospice Knysna  |  Section 21 Company Registration Number: 9003685/08  |  Reg. No. 003418NPO PBO under Section 18a 18/11/13/2572  | Practice Number: 0790007900201 |*

Our mailing address is:
*|info@hospiceknysna.org.za|*

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Knysna Sedgefield Hospice · 24 Wilson Street · Hunters Home · Knysna, Western Cape 6571 · South Africa

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