SHAWCO
Encyclopedia
SHAWCO, the Students' Health and Welfare Centres Organisation is a student-run NGO
based at the University of Cape Town
, that seeks to improve the quality of life for individuals in developing communities within the Cape Metropolitan area.
SHAWCO was founded in 1943 by Andrew Kinnear, a medical student
who was moved to action by the need which he saw in the impoverished communities of Cape Town
. The organisation has grown over the years and now has 1200 student volunteers running over 15 health
and education
projects in 5 SHAWCO centres as well as other locations around the Cape Metropolitan area.
SHAWCO is divided into 2 main sectors: Education and Health. A third "staff sector" coordinates the SHAWCO community centres, transport
, resource development, administrative oversight and project support.
medical student, who spent the vacation driving an ambulance
to earn money to pay for his medical training. Andrew Kinnear asked Dr Golda Selzer of the Pathology Department at Groote Schuur Hospital
to assist him in establishing a clinic. Dr Selzer became one of the cofounders of SHAWCO and remained SHAWCO honorary life president until her death in 1999. In 2001, Mrs Graca Machel
agreed to become SHAWCO's new life president.
What started as a one-man initiative has grown into one of the largest student volunteer organisations on the Africa
n continent, attracting over 900 UCT students, close to 300 foreign students, as well as about 20 community volunteers every year. SHAWCO's developmental strategies include healthcare projects and multi-purpose community centers with skills training and recreation projects.
who oversees the proceedings, verifies diagnoses
and provides advice. Clinical year students are responsible for clerking, examination and treatment of the patients, while also guiding and teaching pre-clinical students who observe and examine patients under guidance. This fulfils another major role of the clinics – providing education and experience to future doctors and instilling a passion for primary health care
. The students who volunteer for SHAWCO clinics say that they are better prepared to deal with the rigours of their community service
year and are more likely to stay on in South Africa
thereafter.
service, treating conditions such as diarrhoea, respiratory tract infections, sexually transmitted infections
, muscular-skeletal ailments
and other non-specialty disease. The clinics provide holistic management
which includes care provided by physiotherapy, occupational therapy
, speech therapy, dietetics and audiology
students who have great dedication to helping provide an appropriate service to the community. The pharmacy
offers free drugs to patients attending the clinics. Students work very closely with community health worker
s within the community. These community health workers contribute to decisions made concerning the various clinics and help educate patient
s around specific health issues. When confronted with a patient requiring a higher level of care or a patient for whom facilities to treat are not available, the patient is referred to the local day hospital or secondary hospital.
s which operate at night on a weekly basis in various Cape Town
communities.
Monday:
Newrest (in Gugulethu)
Simthandile (in Khayelitsha
)
Tuesday:
Masiphumelele (in Noordhoek
)
Brown’s Farm (in Nyanga
)
Wednesday:
Joe Slovo
(in Milnerton)
Zibonele (in Khayelitsha
)
, an informal settlement in Hout Bay
, and Du Noon.
SHAWCO also runs a Wednesday morning paediatric screening clinic, in collaboration with the School of Child and Adolescent Health at the University of Cape Town
. These clinics often serve as the only port-of-call for community members who work during the day, or who cannot make the trip to the neighbouring day hospital. The clinics either operate from permanent health facilities or from SHAWCO Health’s three fully equipped mobile clinics.
and disease
characteristics.
Two-thirds of patients seen on the clinics were female, with the average age of patients 22 years. Approximately 44% of patients seen on the clinics were under the age of 18. The leading complaints on the clinics were respiratory tract infections (29.5%), skin rashes (16.5%), gastro-intestinal disorders (14.9%), Orthopaedic and Rheumatological complaints (9.6%) and sexually transmitted diseases (5.3%).
n medical students from the University of New South Wales
in their final year came over to South Africa for their elective block and ran the clinics. Traditionally, UCT students only begin SHAWCO clinics in February, thus the Australian students were able to add one extra month of services to the communities.
In June/July, 12 Norwegian
Students came to run the clinics during UCT’s 3 week vacation, adding another 3 weeks to SHAWCO's services.
, an extremely rural part of South Africa where people have to travel for many hours to access health care. The team worked in partnership with Zithulele Hospital, running health promotional and educational activities in the local clinics, specifically pertaining to HIV
and breastfeeding practices. Over 5 days, the students also ran clinics for over 360 patients, concurrently training around 60 clinic staff members regarding correct breastfeeding
practices.
This was a pilot programme with the long-term vision being a multi-disciplinary intervention (health students, engineer
s, lawyer
s, social workers etc.) by students from various universities throughout South Africa.
The 2010 version of the Rural Health Programme brought with it some changes: the health focus was more on screening, with students offering blood pressure
, weight
, glucose
, HIV
and pap smear
testing, as well as paediatric health screening. The UCT branch of Engineers Without Borders
, EWB UCT, partnered with SHAWCO to develop and install rainwater-harvesting tanks, including filtration systems, at Zithulele Hospital.
(PHC). Previous topics have included “common dermatological problems encountered in PHC” and “PHC Paediatrics”.
(in the north-eastern part of Johannesburg
) when locals attacked migrants from Mozambique
, Malawi
and Zimbabwe
. Many African nationals were threatened, assaulted and displaced in the wave of Xenophobic violence
that swept through South Africa, and in the following weeks the violence
spread to Cape Town. SHAWCO responded to the needs of the people affected by this violence.
SHAWCO volunteers conveyed donated clothing
, food
and hygiene
products which were distributed to the different sites of refuge around Cape Town. The Health sector, headed up by Thandi de Wit and Britta McLaren, working in partnership with other civil society
organisations (Treatment Action Campaign
and Médecins Sans Frontières
), ran the first standardised assessment across 33 sites two days after the mass exodus of foreign nationals from the township
s.
This assessment collected data on many things including numbers of men, women and children, shelter, food provision, health needs, health services and safety. The framework used for this data collection
later adopted by the City of Cape Town Disaster Management Team. From the data gathered, SHAWCO was able to identify sites in need of extra health support. SHAWCO ran an additional 9 clinics to sites of refuge around the Cape Peninsula, treating over 600 people.
, Science
, Geography
and Life Orientation are taught, as well as extra-curricular programs like Arts and Sports. There are also several special interest projects which run sessions on topics such as environmental awareness, legal education
, and entrepreneurship
.
SHAWCO Education runs 13 different education
al projects.
. Beyond the core numeracy and literacy academic content, this project aims to instill a love of learning in its young participants. Working with grades 3-7, grade 7s graduating from the project are encouraged to join Stepping Out in their grade 8 year. It is one of the oldest of the SHAWCO Education projects, having been founded in 1990.
to primary school learners in Kensington. Similar to STEP, it incorporates as much fun and creative learning as possible. It also encourages its graduating grade 7s to enroll in SOLL in their grade 8 year.
and training after High School seriously. The purpose of the project is to improve the marks, work attitude and life skills of Grade 8 and 9 learners in under-resourced Khayelitsha schools by providing a good understanding of basic high school mathematics, promoting efficient communication in English, and providing information to deal with everyday challenges and to make informed subject choices. The project aims to enhance students' university experience by providing an extracurricular activity that encourages personal development through meaningful social interaction in a challenging environment and contributes to community development.
Through the help of 30 student volunteers, 65 Grade 8 & 9 learners are provided with tutoring in English, Mathematics, and Life Skills. The Thursday and Friday afternoon sessions are held in the classrooms in Masiyile Secondary School (close to K2). In 2010, learners were recruited from Masiyile, Iqhayiya and other Secondary Schools in Khayelitsha.
Stepping Out participants have 3 contact hours with SHAWCO tutors over two sessions per week. This is divided between Mathematics tuition, and English and Life Skills. An outing is also run each term, including a camp for the Grade 9 learners.
Learners from the STEP project (Grade 3 – 7) are channelled directly into the Stepping Out project (provided their high school is close enough to reach lessons on time) and Stepping Out learners are channelled into the SMART project (Grade 10 -12).
Learners who participate in the programme take pure maths and physical science at school and are tutored weekly by volunteering UCT students, following a curriculum which is developed by members of the SHAWCO project committee.
Learners also participate in weekly Careers & Communication sessions, which run on a Saturday. These sessions are aimed at equipping learners with skills which will assist them in making career choices, and ultimately apply to tertiary institutions.
Apart from developing the learners academically, the project also aims to create an environment which allows the Student Volunteers to establish mentoring relationships with the participants such that the volunteers themselves may have a holistic SHAWCO experience.
, cricket
, netball
and hockey
coaching in Manenberg, Nyanga
and Khayelitsha
to children from grades 5-9. The goal of the project is to develop a healthy nation by promoting a healthy lifestyle among the participants.
workshops for grade 10-12 learners in the Cape Town
metropolitan area around practical
aspects of the law, giving them a foundation of knowledge as well as skills to use in their day
to day lives.
LAWCO aims to enable communities to access legal knowledge while at the same time give
law students the opportunity to apply and share their knowledge in communities. In this,
the project sensitises future lawyers to the broader challenges within South Africa and
endeavours to contribute to the development of South Africa
’s constitutional democracy.
Workshops are run at six schools: Aloe Secondary, Princeton High,
Lavender Hill High, Masiyile High, Manyano High and Thandokhulu High. Themes at these workshops include aspects of basic South African law; human rights
; civil and political rights; socioeconomic rights;
labour law
; family law
; criminal law
and consumer protection
.
area. Included in those two hundred learners are the most promising learners from the student run academic projects, SMART and KenSMART. The primary goal behind the program is to provide the final academic push to disadvantaged learners to access tertiary education
.
(PAWC) social services. After hours, the hall is used as a venue for Judo
, ballroom dancing, a pension payout point twice a month and is also available for hire.
, family and child support services and serves as a pension payout point.
SHAWCO Khayelitsha K2 Community Centre is home to the STEP, Stepping Out, SMART, Masifundisane, Masizikhulise and Sports projects.
Non-governmental organization
A non-governmental organization is a legally constituted organization created by natural or legal persons that operates independently from any government. The term originated from the United Nations , and is normally used to refer to organizations that do not form part of the government and are...
based at the University of Cape Town
University of Cape Town
The University of Cape Town is a public research university located in Cape Town in the Western Cape province of South Africa. UCT was founded in 1829 as the South African College, and is the oldest university in South Africa and the second oldest extant university in Africa.-History:The roots of...
, that seeks to improve the quality of life for individuals in developing communities within the Cape Metropolitan area.
SHAWCO was founded in 1943 by Andrew Kinnear, a medical student
Medical Student
Medical Student may refer to:*Someone studying at medical school*Medical Student Newspaper, a UK publication...
who was moved to action by the need which he saw in the impoverished communities of Cape Town
Cape Town
Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...
. The organisation has grown over the years and now has 1200 student volunteers running over 15 health
Health
Health is the level of functional or metabolic efficiency of a living being. In humans, it is the general condition of a person's mind, body and spirit, usually meaning to be free from illness, injury or pain...
and education
Education
Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...
projects in 5 SHAWCO centres as well as other locations around the Cape Metropolitan area.
SHAWCO is divided into 2 main sectors: Education and Health. A third "staff sector" coordinates the SHAWCO community centres, transport
Transport
Transport or transportation is the movement of people, cattle, animals and goods from one location to another. Modes of transport include air, rail, road, water, cable, pipeline, and space. The field can be divided into infrastructure, vehicles, and operations...
, resource development, administrative oversight and project support.
History
SHAWCO was started in July 1943 by Andrew Kinnear, a University of Cape TownUniversity of Cape Town
The University of Cape Town is a public research university located in Cape Town in the Western Cape province of South Africa. UCT was founded in 1829 as the South African College, and is the oldest university in South Africa and the second oldest extant university in Africa.-History:The roots of...
medical student, who spent the vacation driving an ambulance
Ambulance
An ambulance is a vehicle for transportation of sick or injured people to, from or between places of treatment for an illness or injury, and in some instances will also provide out of hospital medical care to the patient...
to earn money to pay for his medical training. Andrew Kinnear asked Dr Golda Selzer of the Pathology Department at Groote Schuur Hospital
Groote Schuur Hospital
Groote Schuur Hospital is a large, government-funded, teaching hospital situated on the slopes of Devil's Peak in the city of Cape Town, South Africa...
to assist him in establishing a clinic. Dr Selzer became one of the cofounders of SHAWCO and remained SHAWCO honorary life president until her death in 1999. In 2001, Mrs Graca Machel
Graça Machel
Graça Machel, DBE is a Mozambican politician and humanitarian. She is the third wife of former South African president Nelson Mandela and the widow of Mozambican president Samora Machel...
agreed to become SHAWCO's new life president.
What started as a one-man initiative has grown into one of the largest student volunteer organisations on the Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
n continent, attracting over 900 UCT students, close to 300 foreign students, as well as about 20 community volunteers every year. SHAWCO's developmental strategies include healthcare projects and multi-purpose community centers with skills training and recreation projects.
SHAWCO Health
Since 1943, SHAWCO has developed a reputation of delivering quality primary health care in under-resourced communities. The Free clinics run by SHAWCO rely on volunteer medical and allied health science students in all years of study and qualified doctors.What happens on the clinics?
During clinics, around 25 patients are seen by medical students under the supervision of a qualified volunteer doctorPhysician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
who oversees the proceedings, verifies diagnoses
Diagnosis
Diagnosis is the identification of the nature and cause of anything. Diagnosis is used in many different disciplines with variations in the use of logics, analytics, and experience to determine the cause and effect relationships...
and provides advice. Clinical year students are responsible for clerking, examination and treatment of the patients, while also guiding and teaching pre-clinical students who observe and examine patients under guidance. This fulfils another major role of the clinics – providing education and experience to future doctors and instilling a passion for primary health care
Primary health care
Primary health care, often abbreviated as “PHC”, has been defined as "essential health care based on practical, scientifically sound and socially acceptable methods and technology made universally accessible to individuals and families in the community through their full participation and at a cost...
. The students who volunteer for SHAWCO clinics say that they are better prepared to deal with the rigours of their community service
Community service
Community service is donated service or activity that is performed by someone or a group of people for the benefit of the public or its institutions....
year and are more likely to stay on in South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
thereafter.
Services offered
SHAWCO provides a primary health carePrimary health care
Primary health care, often abbreviated as “PHC”, has been defined as "essential health care based on practical, scientifically sound and socially acceptable methods and technology made universally accessible to individuals and families in the community through their full participation and at a cost...
service, treating conditions such as diarrhoea, respiratory tract infections, sexually transmitted infections
Sexually transmitted disease
Sexually transmitted disease , also known as a sexually transmitted infection or venereal disease , is an illness that has a significant probability of transmission between humans by means of human sexual behavior, including vaginal intercourse, oral sex, and anal sex...
, muscular-skeletal ailments
Musculoskeletal disorders
Musculoskeletal disorders can affect the body's muscles, joints, tendons, ligaments and nerves. Most work-related MSDs develop over time and are caused either by the work itself or by the employees' working environment...
and other non-specialty disease. The clinics provide holistic management
Holistic management
A term that describes systems thinking approach to managing resources that builds biodiversity, improves production, generates financial strength, enhances sustainability, and improves the quality of life for those who use it...
which includes care provided by physiotherapy, occupational therapy
Occupational therapy
Occupational therapy is a discipline that aims to promote health by enabling people to perform meaningful and purposeful activities. Occupational therapists work with individuals who suffer from a mentally, physically, developmentally, and/or emotionally disabling condition by utilizing treatments...
, speech therapy, dietetics and audiology
Audiology
Audiology is the branch of science that studies hearing, balance, and related disorders. Its practitioners, who treat those with hearing loss and proactively prevent related damage are audiologists. Employing various testing strategies Audiology (from Latin , "to hear"; and from Greek , -logia) is...
students who have great dedication to helping provide an appropriate service to the community. The pharmacy
Pharmacy
Pharmacy is the health profession that links the health sciences with the chemical sciences and it is charged with ensuring the safe and effective use of pharmaceutical drugs...
offers free drugs to patients attending the clinics. Students work very closely with community health worker
Community health worker
Community health workers are members of a community who are chosen by community members or organizations to provide basic health and medical care to their community...
s within the community. These community health workers contribute to decisions made concerning the various clinics and help educate patient
Patient
A patient is any recipient of healthcare services. The patient is most often ill or injured and in need of treatment by a physician, advanced practice registered nurse, veterinarian, or other health care provider....
s around specific health issues. When confronted with a patient requiring a higher level of care or a patient for whom facilities to treat are not available, the patient is referred to the local day hospital or secondary hospital.
Evening Clinics
SHAWCO Health co-ordinates six clinicClinic
A clinic is a health care facility that is primarily devoted to the care of outpatients...
s which operate at night on a weekly basis in various Cape Town
Cape Town
Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...
communities.
Monday:
Newrest (in Gugulethu)
Simthandile (in Khayelitsha
Khayelitsha
Khayelitsha is a partially informal township in Western Cape, South Africa, located on the Cape Flats in the City of Cape Town. The name is Xhosa for New Home...
)
Tuesday:
Masiphumelele (in Noordhoek
Noordhoek, Cape Town
Noordhoek is a suburb of Cape Town, South Africa, located below Chapman's Peak on the west coast of the Cape Peninsula, approximately thirty-five kilometres to the south of the city itself. The name "Noordhoek" was taken from Dutch and literally means "north corner"...
)
Brown’s Farm (in Nyanga
Nyanga, Cape Town
Nyanga is a township in Cape Town, South Africa. Its name in Xhosa means ‘moon’ and it is one of the oldest black townships in Cape Town. It was established as a result of the migrant labor system. In the early fifties black migrants were forced to settle in Nyanga as Langa became too small. ...
)
Wednesday:
Joe Slovo
Joe Slovo (Cape Town)
Joe Slovo is an informal settlement in Langa, Cape Town. Like many other informal settlements, it was named after former housing minister and Anti-Apartheid activist, Joe Slovo...
(in Milnerton)
Zibonele (in Khayelitsha
Khayelitsha
Khayelitsha is a partially informal township in Western Cape, South Africa, located on the Cape Flats in the City of Cape Town. The name is Xhosa for New Home...
)
Paediatric Clinics
The Saturday morning paediatric clinic alternates every 2 weeks between Imizamo YethuImizamo Yethu
Imizamo Yethu , is an informal settlement in the greater Hout Bay Valley area.The 18 hectare settlement houses approximately 33 600 people with little or no infrastructure for sustainable living....
, an informal settlement in Hout Bay
Hout Bay
Hout Bay is the name of a coastal suburb of Cape Town, South Africa with a mix of neighbourhoods from the very rich to the very poor. It lies in a valley on the Atlantic Seaboard of the Cape Peninsula and is twenty kilometres south of the Central Business District of Cape Town...
, and Du Noon.
SHAWCO also runs a Wednesday morning paediatric screening clinic, in collaboration with the School of Child and Adolescent Health at the University of Cape Town
University of Cape Town
The University of Cape Town is a public research university located in Cape Town in the Western Cape province of South Africa. UCT was founded in 1829 as the South African College, and is the oldest university in South Africa and the second oldest extant university in Africa.-History:The roots of...
. These clinics often serve as the only port-of-call for community members who work during the day, or who cannot make the trip to the neighbouring day hospital. The clinics either operate from permanent health facilities or from SHAWCO Health’s three fully equipped mobile clinics.
Statistics
| Year | Number of clinics | Number of local student volunteers |
Number of international student volunteers |
Total student volunteer sessions |
Number patients |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | 251 | 600+ | 200+ | 2600+ | 5,130+ |
| 2010 | 248 | 644 | 180 | 2515 | 5,488 |
| 2009 | 180 | 557 | No record | 1970 | 4,806 |
| 2008 | 160 | 477 | No record | 2093 | 4,208 |
| 2007 | 134 | No record | No record | No record | 3,596 |
| 2003 | 115 | +/- 150 | No record | No record | 2,005 |
| 1963 | 3 fixed sites | 63% of all medical students at UCT | No record | No record | 14,716 |
2009
In 2009 a new data capturing system was introduced to track student attendance, patient demographyDemography
Demography is the statistical study of human population. It can be a very general science that can be applied to any kind of dynamic human population, that is, one that changes over time or space...
and disease
Disease
A disease is an abnormal condition affecting the body of an organism. It is often construed to be a medical condition associated with specific symptoms and signs. It may be caused by external factors, such as infectious disease, or it may be caused by internal dysfunctions, such as autoimmune...
characteristics.
Two-thirds of patients seen on the clinics were female, with the average age of patients 22 years. Approximately 44% of patients seen on the clinics were under the age of 18. The leading complaints on the clinics were respiratory tract infections (29.5%), skin rashes (16.5%), gastro-intestinal disorders (14.9%), Orthopaedic and Rheumatological complaints (9.6%) and sexually transmitted diseases (5.3%).
International Students Programme
2009 was the first year Shawco Health ran an international students project. In January 2009 a group of 12 AustraliaAustralia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n medical students from the University of New South Wales
University of New South Wales
The University of New South Wales , is a research-focused university based in Kensington, a suburb in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia...
in their final year came over to South Africa for their elective block and ran the clinics. Traditionally, UCT students only begin SHAWCO clinics in February, thus the Australian students were able to add one extra month of services to the communities.
In June/July, 12 Norwegian
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
Students came to run the clinics during UCT’s 3 week vacation, adding another 3 weeks to SHAWCO's services.
Rural Health Programme
In July 2009, nine medical students, an audiologist and a nursing sister from Mowbray Maternity Hospital traveled to Coffee Bay in the Eastern CapeEastern Cape
The Eastern Cape is a province of South Africa. Its capital is Bhisho, but its two largest cities are Port Elizabeth and East London. It was formed in 1994 out of the "independent" Xhosa homelands of Transkei and Ciskei, together with the eastern portion of the Cape Province...
, an extremely rural part of South Africa where people have to travel for many hours to access health care. The team worked in partnership with Zithulele Hospital, running health promotional and educational activities in the local clinics, specifically pertaining to HIV
HIV
Human immunodeficiency virus is a lentivirus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome , a condition in humans in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive...
and breastfeeding practices. Over 5 days, the students also ran clinics for over 360 patients, concurrently training around 60 clinic staff members regarding correct breastfeeding
Breastfeeding
Breastfeeding is the feeding of an infant or young child with breast milk directly from female human breasts rather than from a baby bottle or other container. Babies have a sucking reflex that enables them to suck and swallow milk. It is recommended that mothers breastfeed for six months or...
practices.
This was a pilot programme with the long-term vision being a multi-disciplinary intervention (health students, engineer
Engineer
An engineer is a professional practitioner of engineering, concerned with applying scientific knowledge, mathematics and ingenuity to develop solutions for technical problems. Engineers design materials, structures, machines and systems while considering the limitations imposed by practicality,...
s, lawyer
Lawyer
A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...
s, social workers etc.) by students from various universities throughout South Africa.
The 2010 version of the Rural Health Programme brought with it some changes: the health focus was more on screening, with students offering blood pressure
Blood pressure
Blood pressure is the pressure exerted by circulating blood upon the walls of blood vessels, and is one of the principal vital signs. When used without further specification, "blood pressure" usually refers to the arterial pressure of the systemic circulation. During each heartbeat, BP varies...
, weight
Weight
In science and engineering, the weight of an object is the force on the object due to gravity. Its magnitude , often denoted by an italic letter W, is the product of the mass m of the object and the magnitude of the local gravitational acceleration g; thus:...
, glucose
Glucose
Glucose is a simple sugar and an important carbohydrate in biology. Cells use it as the primary source of energy and a metabolic intermediate...
, HIV
HIV
Human immunodeficiency virus is a lentivirus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome , a condition in humans in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive...
and pap smear
Pap smear
The Papanicolaou test is a screening test used in to detect pre-cancerous and cancerous processes in the endocervical canal of the female reproductive system. Changes can be treated, thus preventing cervical cancer...
testing, as well as paediatric health screening. The UCT branch of Engineers Without Borders
Engineers Without Borders
Engineers Without Borders – International is an international association of some national EWB/ISF groups, whose mission is to facilitate collaboration, exchange of information, and assistance among its member groups that have applied to become part of the association...
, EWB UCT, partnered with SHAWCO to develop and install rainwater-harvesting tanks, including filtration systems, at Zithulele Hospital.
Grand Ward Rounds
SHAWCO hosts grand ward rounds for all UCT medical students. These offer students the opportunity to report on cases they had seen on SHAWCO clinics and share their learning with their peers. In addition, there is always a guest speaker who addresses the students on a topic pertinent to primary health carePrimary health care
Primary health care, often abbreviated as “PHC”, has been defined as "essential health care based on practical, scientifically sound and socially acceptable methods and technology made universally accessible to individuals and families in the community through their full participation and at a cost...
(PHC). Previous topics have included “common dermatological problems encountered in PHC” and “PHC Paediatrics”.
SHAWCO Response to Xenophobic Attacks, May 2008
On May 12, 2008 a series of riots started in the township of AlexandraAlexandra, Gauteng
Alexandra or Alex for short, nicknamed Gomora is a township located in Gauteng province, South Africa. It is part of Johannesburg, close to the wealthy suburb of Sandton and is bounded by Wynberg on the west, Marlboro and Kelvin on the north, Kew, Lombardy West and Lombardy East on the south...
(in the north-eastern part of Johannesburg
Johannesburg
Johannesburg also known as Jozi, Jo'burg or Egoli, is the largest city in South Africa, by population. Johannesburg is the provincial capital of Gauteng, the wealthiest province in South Africa, having the largest economy of any metropolitan region in Sub-Saharan Africa...
) when locals attacked migrants from Mozambique
Mozambique
Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique , is a country in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west and Swaziland and South Africa to the southwest...
, Malawi
Malawi
The Republic of Malawi is a landlocked country in southeast Africa that was formerly known as Nyasaland. It is bordered by Zambia to the northwest, Tanzania to the northeast, and Mozambique on the east, south and west. The country is separated from Tanzania and Mozambique by Lake Malawi. Its size...
and Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the African continent, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia and a tip of Namibia to the northwest and Mozambique to the east. Zimbabwe has three...
. Many African nationals were threatened, assaulted and displaced in the wave of Xenophobic violence
Xenophobia
Xenophobia is defined as "an unreasonable fear of foreigners or strangers or of that which is foreign or strange". It comes from the Greek words ξένος , meaning "stranger," "foreigner" and φόβος , meaning "fear."...
that swept through South Africa, and in the following weeks the violence
Violence
Violence is the use of physical force to apply a state to others contrary to their wishes. violence, while often a stand-alone issue, is often the culmination of other kinds of conflict, e.g...
spread to Cape Town. SHAWCO responded to the needs of the people affected by this violence.
SHAWCO volunteers conveyed donated clothing
Clothing
Clothing refers to any covering for the human body that is worn. The wearing of clothing is exclusively a human characteristic and is a feature of nearly all human societies...
, food
Food
Food is any substance consumed to provide nutritional support for the body. It is usually of plant or animal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals...
and hygiene
Hygiene
Hygiene refers to the set of practices perceived by a community to be associated with the preservation of health and healthy living. While in modern medical sciences there is a set of standards of hygiene recommended for different situations, what is considered hygienic or not can vary between...
products which were distributed to the different sites of refuge around Cape Town. The Health sector, headed up by Thandi de Wit and Britta McLaren, working in partnership with other civil society
Civil society
Civil society is composed of the totality of many voluntary social relationships, civic and social organizations, and institutions that form the basis of a functioning society, as distinct from the force-backed structures of a state , the commercial institutions of the market, and private criminal...
organisations (Treatment Action Campaign
Treatment Action Campaign
The Treatment Action Campaign is a South African AIDS activist organization which was founded by the HIV-positive activist Zackie Achmat in 1998. TAC is rooted in the experiences, direct action tactics and anti-apartheid background of its founder...
and Médecins Sans Frontières
Médecins Sans Frontières
' , or Doctors Without Borders, is a secular humanitarian-aid non-governmental organization best known for its projects in war-torn regions and developing countries facing endemic diseases. Its headquarters are in Geneva, Switzerland...
), ran the first standardised assessment across 33 sites two days after the mass exodus of foreign nationals from the township
Township
The word township is used to refer to different kinds of settlements in different countries. Township is generally associated with an urban area. However there are many exceptions to this rule. In Australia, the United States, and Canada, they may be settlements too small to be considered urban...
s.
This assessment collected data on many things including numbers of men, women and children, shelter, food provision, health needs, health services and safety. The framework used for this data collection
Data collection
Data collection is a term used to describe a process of preparing and collecting data, for example, as part of a process improvement or similar project. The purpose of data collection is to obtain information to keep on record, to make decisions about important issues, to pass information on to...
later adopted by the City of Cape Town Disaster Management Team. From the data gathered, SHAWCO was able to identify sites in need of extra health support. SHAWCO ran an additional 9 clinics to sites of refuge around the Cape Peninsula, treating over 600 people.
SHAWCO Education
SHAWCO Education is a development program that facilitates tutoring in various subjects for school learners and young adults in previously disadvantaged communities. Academic subjects such as Maths, EnglishEnglish language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, Science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
, Geography
Geography
Geography is the science that studies the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes...
and Life Orientation are taught, as well as extra-curricular programs like Arts and Sports. There are also several special interest projects which run sessions on topics such as environmental awareness, legal education
Legal education
Legal education is the education of individuals who intend to become legal professionals or those who simply intend to use their law degree to some end, either related to law or business...
, and entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship is the act of being an entrepreneur, which can be defined as "one who undertakes innovations, finance and business acumen in an effort to transform innovations into economic goods". This may result in new organizations or may be part of revitalizing mature organizations in response...
.
SHAWCO Education runs 13 different education
Education
Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...
al projects.
STEP
STEP tutors Maths, English and Life Skills to primary school learners in KhayelitshaKhayelitsha
Khayelitsha is a partially informal township in Western Cape, South Africa, located on the Cape Flats in the City of Cape Town. The name is Xhosa for New Home...
. Beyond the core numeracy and literacy academic content, this project aims to instill a love of learning in its young participants. Working with grades 3-7, grade 7s graduating from the project are encouraged to join Stepping Out in their grade 8 year. It is one of the oldest of the SHAWCO Education projects, having been founded in 1990.
KENSTEP
KENSTEP tutors Maths, English and Life SkillsLife skills
Life skills are problem solving behaviors used appropriately and responsibly in the management of personal affairs. They are a set of human skills acquired via teaching or direct experience that are used to handle problems and questions commonly encountered in daily human life...
to primary school learners in Kensington. Similar to STEP, it incorporates as much fun and creative learning as possible. It also encourages its graduating grade 7s to enroll in SOLL in their grade 8 year.
Stepping Out
Stepping Out tutors Maths, English and Life Skills to grade 8 and 9 learners in Khayelitsha. The project was established at the Khayelitsha K2 Centre in 2002. It provides academic support during the often difficult transition from Junior to High School, while seeking to persuade the learners to consider higher educationHigher education
Higher, post-secondary, tertiary, or third level education refers to the stage of learning that occurs at universities, academies, colleges, seminaries, and institutes of technology...
and training after High School seriously. The purpose of the project is to improve the marks, work attitude and life skills of Grade 8 and 9 learners in under-resourced Khayelitsha schools by providing a good understanding of basic high school mathematics, promoting efficient communication in English, and providing information to deal with everyday challenges and to make informed subject choices. The project aims to enhance students' university experience by providing an extracurricular activity that encourages personal development through meaningful social interaction in a challenging environment and contributes to community development.
Through the help of 30 student volunteers, 65 Grade 8 & 9 learners are provided with tutoring in English, Mathematics, and Life Skills. The Thursday and Friday afternoon sessions are held in the classrooms in Masiyile Secondary School (close to K2). In 2010, learners were recruited from Masiyile, Iqhayiya and other Secondary Schools in Khayelitsha.
Stepping Out participants have 3 contact hours with SHAWCO tutors over two sessions per week. This is divided between Mathematics tuition, and English and Life Skills. An outing is also run each term, including a camp for the Grade 9 learners.
Learners from the STEP project (Grade 3 – 7) are channelled directly into the Stepping Out project (provided their high school is close enough to reach lessons on time) and Stepping Out learners are channelled into the SMART project (Grade 10 -12).
Stepping Out Live and Learn
Sixty grade 8 and 9 students from four different high schools in Kensington are tutored in Maths, English and Life Skills on Monday and Wednesday afternoons at the Kensington Shawco centre. With exactly the same aims as Stepping Out, Stepping Out Live and Learn is a linchpin in SHAWCO's strategy of persuading students that learning is fun and that higher education is a viable option for their future.SMART
The SHAWCO Student Mentored All Round Tutoring (SMART) project aims to provide learners in Grades 10, 11 and 12 from disadvantaged schools in Khayelitsha, who have shown academic potential and an enthusiasm for learning, the opportunity for further educational and self development.Learners who participate in the programme take pure maths and physical science at school and are tutored weekly by volunteering UCT students, following a curriculum which is developed by members of the SHAWCO project committee.
Learners also participate in weekly Careers & Communication sessions, which run on a Saturday. These sessions are aimed at equipping learners with skills which will assist them in making career choices, and ultimately apply to tertiary institutions.
Apart from developing the learners academically, the project also aims to create an environment which allows the Student Volunteers to establish mentoring relationships with the participants such that the volunteers themselves may have a holistic SHAWCO experience.
KenSMART
Kensington Student Mentoring and All-Round Tutoring (SMART) tutors Maths and Physical Science to grade 10, 11 and 12 learners in Kensington. As in SMART, support is provided to ensure that all learners participating in the program are able to make as informed choice as possible about their future.Masizame
Masizame is a student project which works with a wide range of learners living in Lieliebloem and St Georges children's homes. As well as providing the academic tutoring offered by other projects, special focus is put on individualised interaction with the learners.Arts
The Arts Project runs in Manenberg, and incorporates the teaching of many different art disciplines in a structured manner.Sports
The Sports project aims to develop the skills, team work and ethics on the sports field of the children in these different communities. The project offers soccer, rugbyRugby football
Rugby football is a style of football named after Rugby School in the United Kingdom. It is seen most prominently in two current sports, rugby league and rugby union.-History:...
, cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
, netball
Netball
Netball is a ball sport played between two teams of seven players. Its development, derived from early versions of basketball, began in England in the 1890s. By 1960 international playing rules had been standardised for the game, and the International Federation of Netball and Women's Basketball ...
and hockey
Hockey
Hockey is a family of sports in which two teams play against each other by trying to maneuver a ball or a puck into the opponent's goal using a hockey stick.-Etymology:...
coaching in Manenberg, Nyanga
Nyanga, Cape Town
Nyanga is a township in Cape Town, South Africa. Its name in Xhosa means ‘moon’ and it is one of the oldest black townships in Cape Town. It was established as a result of the migrant labor system. In the early fifties black migrants were forced to settle in Nyanga as Langa became too small. ...
and Khayelitsha
Khayelitsha
Khayelitsha is a partially informal township in Western Cape, South Africa, located on the Cape Flats in the City of Cape Town. The name is Xhosa for New Home...
to children from grades 5-9. The goal of the project is to develop a healthy nation by promoting a healthy lifestyle among the participants.
Masizikhulise
The only project to work with young adults, post-school, Masizikhulise provides training in Entrepreneurship so as to facilitate personal development and job creating in Khayelitsha and Nyanga.LAWCO
LAWCO (Legal Welfare Community Organisation) is a student initiative that runs legalworkshops for grade 10-12 learners in the Cape Town
Cape Town
Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...
metropolitan area around practical
aspects of the law, giving them a foundation of knowledge as well as skills to use in their day
to day lives.
LAWCO aims to enable communities to access legal knowledge while at the same time give
law students the opportunity to apply and share their knowledge in communities. In this,
the project sensitises future lawyers to the broader challenges within South Africa and
endeavours to contribute to the development of South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
’s constitutional democracy.
Workshops are run at six schools: Aloe Secondary, Princeton High,
Lavender Hill High, Masiyile High, Manyano High and Thandokhulu High. Themes at these workshops include aspects of basic South African law; human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
; civil and political rights; socioeconomic rights;
labour law
Labour law
Labour law is the body of laws, administrative rulings, and precedents which address the legal rights of, and restrictions on, working people and their organizations. As such, it mediates many aspects of the relationship between trade unions, employers and employees...
; family law
Family law
Family law is an area of the law that deals with family-related issues and domestic relations including:*the nature of marriage, civil unions, and domestic partnerships;...
; criminal law
Criminal law
Criminal law, is the body of law that relates to crime. It might be defined as the body of rules that defines conduct that is not allowed because it is held to threaten, harm or endanger the safety and welfare of people, and that sets out the punishment to be imposed on people who do not obey...
and consumer protection
Consumer protection
Consumer protection laws designed to ensure fair trade competition and the free flow of truthful information in the marketplace. The laws are designed to prevent businesses that engage in fraud or specified unfair practices from gaining an advantage over competitors and may provide additional...
.
Masifundisane
Masifundisane provides tutoring in school Geography for grade 11s and 12s once a week in Khayelitsha. It also runs weekly environmental awareness workshops in schools in Khayelitsha.Saturday School
The Saturday School Boost Program is a staff run project, which employs professional teachers to provide focused remedial Saturday teaching to two hundred grade 12 learners from across the Cape TownCape Town
Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...
area. Included in those two hundred learners are the most promising learners from the student run academic projects, SMART and KenSMART. The primary goal behind the program is to provide the final academic push to disadvantaged learners to access tertiary education
Tertiary education
Tertiary education, also referred to as third stage, third level, and post-secondary education, is the educational level following the completion of a school providing a secondary education, such as a high school, secondary school, university-preparatory school...
.
Kensington Centre on 12th Avenue
The iconic SHAWCO Kensington Community Centre was once the headquarters of the organisation, and is home to a full suite of academic projects (KenSTEP, Stepping Out Live and Learn and KenSMART). In addition, it houses the SHAWCO adult Day Care Club, providing meals-on-wheels to approximately 45 people in the area, and also houses a number of local organisations: the Union of Jewish Women's crèche, a home-care training facility, a church group, a community newspaper, as well as the Provincial Administration of the Western CapeWestern Cape
The Western Cape is a province in the south west of South Africa. The capital is Cape Town. Prior to 1994, the region that now forms the Western Cape was part of the much larger Cape Province...
(PAWC) social services. After hours, the hall is used as a venue for Judo
Judo
is a modern martial art and combat sport created in Japan in 1882 by Jigoro Kano. Its most prominent feature is its competitive element, where the object is to either throw or takedown one's opponent to the ground, immobilize or otherwise subdue one's opponent with a grappling maneuver, or force an...
, ballroom dancing, a pension payout point twice a month and is also available for hire.
Manenberg Centre
SHAWCO Manenberg Community Centre. The Performing and Visual Arts Project, taking place at the centre, involves UCT students volunteer who help local primary and secondary school learners develop communication skills and leadership qualities through art and drama. The Manenebrg Sport Project also takes place at the centre. It involves more than 100 children participating in various sporting codes with the help from UCT students' volunteers. In addition, the centre houses a local crècheDay care
Child care or day care is care of a child during the day by a person other than the child's legal guardians, typically performed by someone outside the child's immediate family...
, family and child support services and serves as a pension payout point.
Nyanga Centre
SHAWCO Nyanga Community Centre is home to Masizikhulise (Let us help one another grow) Project. The Nyanga Sports Project takes place at a near-by community hall. The centre also runs an Adult Day Care Club for older and disabled people, and delivers meals-on-wheels to elderly and disabled residents in the area.Khayelitsha Centres
SHAWCO Khayelitsha K1 Community Centre is home to the Noxolo Adult Day Care Club, as well as a number of local NGOs providing family and rape counseling, working with Aids orphans and offering other family-related counseling services. SHAWCO has raised funds in the name of the late Dr Golda Selzer, to upgrade and expand the centre in order to transform it into a UCT teaching site and therapy centre, where members of the Noxolo club, as well as other Khayelitsha residents can receive occupational therapy, physiotherapy and other kinds of therapy from UCT students.SHAWCO Khayelitsha K2 Community Centre is home to the STEP, Stepping Out, SMART, Masifundisane, Masizikhulise and Sports projects.