Community Outreach Program
TTL outreach—the key to our sustainability—provides medical, nutritional, social, and material services to both children who have returned to their families after living in the TTL safehome and children whose families are able to support their development with TTL’s assistance. TTL outreach staff continues to conduct assessments of the family’s needs in caring for the child, the child’s health and development status, and the home’s social setting. Our current outreach programming in the Mokhotlong area reaches over 200 families; however, we have recently expanded into the secluded Thaba-Tseka district. Under the direction of TTL’s Assistant to the Managing Director Dan Block and locally trained outreach coordinator Khatsa, our Thaba-Tseka expansion is focusing on the development of a prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission (PMTCT) outreach program, the first of its kind in the area.
A dedicated outreach staff regularly visits to provide:
- Nutritional assistance: canned fruits, vegetables, condensed milk, and meats to supplement the family’s food
- Infant formula: formula, paraffin stoves and oil for boiling water
- Medicines: antiretroviral drugs for children with HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis treatment, other necessary medications, vitamins, and training for families on proper administration and medical adherence
- Sanitation and food storage: containers for storing food, dish soap
- Educational stipends for young mothers to return to school
- Counseling and testing: HIV testing for children and their caretakers, HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment education
- Support of agricultural production by providing crop seed
- Repairs of home structures to enable a warm and dry environment.
The visits often involve traveling by 4-wheel drive for hours and additional time hiking deep into the mountainous terrain. Future plans call for expansion to reach 300 families by the end of 2008 and the purchase of a third outreach vehicle.