Teaching experience has given the Sisters in South Africa the opportunity to help people in many varied ways.  Funds had to be monitored and evaluated on a constant basis.  These were vital funds that had been accessed to help increase community level services to reach orphans and vulnerable children (OVCs) so that the lives of children with HIV could be improved.  Sr Francis Krige was able to bring her experience to bear in this area by strengthening the reporting capabilities of the administrative staff and caregivers of each funded project.

Projects had begun by providing food for children living with grandparents, who came to collect their only meal of the day on their way home from school.    Support was extended however, much further than providing food with also training support for caregivers and afterschool care programmes.

First world reporting requirements on all of the services had to be carried out in third world conditions.  Since 2007, the projects have been taken from a ‘world of paper control to the world of electronic data storage’.  Extensive field work was conducted at OVC sites to ensure quality of data captured in the electronic system. This has greatly reduced time spent on doing reports manually. More time can now be focussed on the core principles of giving quality care to the children in the OVC projects through networking with different stakeholders within the local area, training of staff and offering three or more services to the OVC.

The SACBC OVC projects are in the more rural areas where the government services are limited and poverty and HIV/AIDS more prevalent. Despite the challenges experienced in these projects, the hope lies in that they are the community members serving their own community members.