Durbanville (Fisante Kraal)

Selina Welkom (HOPE Community Health Worker)
Duran Le Roux (HOPE Community Health Worker)

Selina Welkom comes all the way from Indwe in the Eastern Cape Province but grew up on a farm in Paarl, close to Durbanville.  A new HOPE Community Health Worker, Selina has a strong desire to reach out to others with compassion and respect.  Her previous experience in the Durbanville clinic includes being a volunteer Tuberculosis (TB) Treatment Supporter.  Her knowledge of the community, dedication to helping others and language skills are already making her a valuable addition to the clinic.  Her motto is: If the calling is yours, endear it.

The second new HOPE Community Health Worker in Durbanville is Duran Christopher Lee LeRoux.  After his high school studies, Duran joined Chrysalis Academy, a unique outreach program in the Western Cape with a focus on self-realisation and sports.  Work experience includes being a Life Guard, a Groundbreaker with LoveLife and an Activity Coordinator for the City of Cape Town.  Duran’s keen enthusiasm and interest in people is evident in the clinic and the community.  His passion for sport - rugby, volleyballs, cricket and swimming – parallels his belief in our power to find and follow our purpose in life.

Durbanville Clinic

Built in 1998, this dual city clinic and provincial day hospital takes sees more than 150 clients for TB and HIV testing and counseling, sexual and general health, family planning, hypertension, diabetes and pediatric care each day.  With a medical staff of six nursing sisters, a full time day hospital doctor and a clinic TB doctor once a week, Durbanville clinic does its best to handle the increasing amount of TB, HIV, hypertension, and diabetes patients common in the area.  Per month, about 70 people are tested for HIV, and about 20 of them test positive at the clinic.  Nearly every pregnant mother that visits the clinic also is tested for HIV (about 50 per month) and around 12-15 test positive.  To date the PMTCT (Prevention of Mother To Child Transmission) program is successful - 6 babies are confirmed HIV negative and 22 more are awaiting results.

Durbanville Community

Durbanville is a sprawling farming and migrant worker community full of stark contrasts in health, housing, and income.  In the areas directly around the clinic the majority of people have a household income per annum of R76,801 – 307,200.  This range contrasts with migrant areas like Fisantkraal in the outskirts of Durbanville where Thandeka lives and works.  In this part, the majority of households are in the R0 – 19,200 income band.  Previously only shacks, this Xhosa and Colored community finally received some government housing in the year 2000, yet many are still housed in informal dwellings. A population largely from the Eastern Cape, the residents have very high TB rates, children orphaned from HIV and Aids, a high student drop out and non-attendance rates and overcrowding with anywhere from 10-15 people per dwelling.  

Statistics: City of Cape Town Census 2001 at http://www.capetown.gov.za/censusinfo/Census2001

Selina Wekom

Duran Le Roux