These are exceptionally challenging times for communities of the Western Cape as COVID-19 wreaks havoc within our already struggling education and health systems. The hardest hit being resource-constrained schools and clinics that can least afford it. SHAWCO’s Health and Education Sectors are attempting to address some of these dire needs by working with funders such as DELL Technologies and RAG to address the digital divide for our learners and to run mobile night clinics in areas of extreme poverty to alleviate the load on over-crowded day hospitals.

Here’s a quick glimpse into some of our achievements over the last 7 months.

6 mobile computer labs
Both urban and rural, our new community-based labs are fully operational. In addition, our successful application to the 2021/22 DELL grant cycle will enable the development of a multi-functional community hub for both health and education at our centre in Kensington.

Mobile night clinics
Running from 17:00-23:00 in eight resource-constrained areas, our clinics offer basic medical treatment, screening for common conditions such as hypertension and diabetes and health clinic referrals. We also run a number of specialist clinics on Saturdays, including paediatric and women’s clinics.

Jargon-busting the law
SHAWCO Law has been running a ‘street law’ programme with high learners in Manenberg and Khayelitsha. The team takes inaccessible legalese and constitutional law and ‘translates’ it into accessible, on-the-ground, practical language to help learners navigate the law to protect themselves and their community.

Violence prevention workshops
SHAWCO is also working in collaboration with local government departments and NGOs to facilitate a violence prevention initiative in schools that will be run from Sept-Nov 2021. This project will run under the umbrella of SHAWCO with UCT student facilitators from fields of psychology, social work and occupational therapy.

Your support can help with:

Reaching mobile clinics’ goal of seeing 5,000 patients per year and returning to full capacity by 2023.

Integrating mental health support into all future SHAWCO initiatives. The mental health crisis among learners that has been further aggravated by the pandemic.

The “Adopt a Clinic” initiative invites you to do just that, covering the costs of its functions and activities. As a sponsor, you will receive regular updates on how your adopted clinic is progressing.