PROJECT-SUPPORT SOUTH AFRICA

Khula Foundation, Zürich, Switzerland

Country / Place

South Africa, Khula Village, Province Kwazulu Natal  

The Republic of South Africa borders the Indian Ocean to the south and southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. To the north are the neighbouring states of Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe, to the northeast Mozambique and to the east Eswatini. It also completely enclaves the country Lesotho. The Republic of South Africa has three capitals: the executive government is in Pretoria, the legislative parliament in Cape Town and the judicial Supreme Court in Bloemfontein.

The province Kwazulu Natal is located in the southeast of the country, with a long shoreline on the Indian Ocean and sharing borders with three other provinces, and the countries of Mozambique, Eswatini and Lesotho.

General

In April 2017 a primary health care centre, known as Khula Natural Health Centre, was founded in Khula Village, a rural area of the province Kwazulu-Natal. It is a charitable, non-profit, community upliftment project in close collaboration with the local population, the Induna (Zulu chief) of Khula Village, the government clinics, the University of Johannesburg, and Durban University of Technology.  

The health centre provides excellent primary health care services to the community of Khula and surrounding areas focussing mainly on children and women’s health. They provide effective, safe, and affordable treatment using homoeopathic remedies which the patients use complementary to Western medicine. Given the shortage of skilled workers, professionals from allied and complementary health professions play an important role in supporting primary health care.

Beneficiaries

Khula Village has a population of about 20’000 adults and about 23’000 children. With the surrounding districts, this results in a catchment area of far more than 200’000 inhabitants. In this area there are many AIDS-orphans and grandparents living alone. The reason for this is that the generation in between, which usually takes care of these two age groups, has mostly already died of AIDS or moved to the big cities in search of work.

Projekt-support

Project: Khula Natural Health Centre (KNHC)

Since the health centre opened, over 35’000 patients have been treated. At the beginning, the KNHC was open one week per month. Due to the very high demand, also from neighbouring areas, the health centre is now open 30 weeks a year. The aim is to offer full-time health services, with sufficient financial resources, to be able to carry out the urgently needed consultations and treatments.

Khula Natural Health Centre is an official accredited training and internship site which provides much needed and valuable training facilities to Homoeopathy students and interns. They have a close collaboration with the Department of Homoeopathy of the University of Johannesburg and with the Durban University of Technology, which send their 5th year students and interns on a regular basis to KNHC. The centre provides excellent training facilities for these young adults in a challenging rural setting.

Another concern is the well-being of the population and the understanding and awareness of their own health. Therefore, short information blocks on specific topics are regularly presented in the waiting areas, e.g. contraception, HIV-AIDS, healthy nutrition, tuberculosis, hygiene, treating wounds, etc.