In spite of battening down the hatches for the Scottish winter the good folks of Crieff managed to contribute £155 to the CAP funds.

Given that everyone is broke in January we’re pleased to report that the CAP contributions for Jan were £115.

December was a good month for CAP – probably the best yet. Contributions during the month came to £2545.20, making a total for 2007 of around £8300 plus the £8000 from the Church budget. Not bad for a church of 60+ members…

We’re having our annual Church Business Meeting this coming weekend after which we’ll post the annual report for the CAP funds.

The CAP coffers increased by GBP215.50 in November 2007…

Contributions to CAP in October 2007 were GBP 107.29.

We received confirmation that the last CAKE contribution of GBP7000 has finally arrived at Maluti in Lesotho. We hope to post more information on what the money will be used for soon…

Contributions to CAP in September 2007 came to GBP 678.10.

Contributions to CAP in August 2007 came to GBP 105.00.

(the text below is from Ruth Farrer, who has just returned from visiting Romania and the Chesau home)

Robi Horvath married Claudia on 22 July. They will live in the section of the Home where Robi’s parents lived. The parents have built a small flat at the other end of the Home for themselves. Czabi and Hajni Horvath are expecting their first baby in September. Hajni will not work for the next 2 years.

Koti, our nurse, has left to work in Italy, but Claudia has just qualified as a nurse and will take her place. Claudia will attend the Adventist Seminary in Budapest for about 10 days for the next 3 years to get another essential government qualification for running a nursing home.

The CAP fund is currently paying the salaries of Claudia (nurse in charge), Utka (head of kitchen) and Ioan (cares for male patients, helps with laundry, cleaning and building – in other words he does whatever needs to be done!).

Jozsi and the sons continue to build additional rooms so that they can accommodate between 45-50 patients. Ilonka is now free from the kitchen and oversees all the nurses, cleaners, kitchen, etc. She now has a little more free time and can spend time talking with the patients.

All staff members have taken a course in health and hygiene and all passed the final examination. This is valid for 2 years. The Home will receive full accreditation in September (delay because of holidays). This means that everything is up to – and even higher – than the EU and local standards. This accreditation is valid for several years. General standards have been reached and there are some specific standards which need to be reached in about 2 years time.

It is rumoured that from January the government will pay one salary and give about GBP20 per month per patient. The grandmother of the SDA minister in Dundee, Scotland, is now a resident in the Home.

I believe CAP has made a substantial difference to this nursing home. Everything is going extremely well at the moment and I pray that it will continue to do so.

Ruth Farrer

I’ve just finished a new ‘CAP’ page that gives a summary of what CAP is and why we did it.  I trust it proves enlightening…

Contributions to CAP in July 2007 came to GBP 264.28.

Between June last year and the end of June this year the good folks of Crieff Church (and a few others) have contributed just over GBP 25,000 (25,811.18 to be precise) either directly from the church funds or from separate donations.

The June contributions were GBP 828.00.

Well done!

Contributions to CAP in May 2007 came to GBP 319.69.

1.SUMMARY

The ROPE project will help to answer the needs of the elderly and sick in the village of Chesau, Romania, who are not able to take care of themselves. These people often have no family to care for them, have very little pension or no pension at all. Instead of living in farm barns or on the streets, they will be provided with a comfortable home with all their needs cared for. This home is run by the Horvath family.

2. FINANCIAL STATEMENT

CAP sent out a total of GBP6000 in 2006, in two instalments. This money has been used by the Horvaths to assist in the running of the home as follows:

1. Kati (pronounced ‘Cottie’) Tarr, a local nurse, has been employed full time in the home. We will be paying her salary for the duration of the CAP funding (currently 3 years starting in 2006).
2. In order to meet EU rules (Romania became part of the EU on 1 January 2007) the home had to equip their kitchen to meet EU standards. This was a legal requirement and had to be completed by the end of October 2006.
3. The Horvath family were running two old Ladas, each over twenty years old. They are now in possession of a much more modern second-hand Daewoo Leganza.

Kati at work in the home.

1.SUMMARY

The CAKE project helps to provide assistance to the existing Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC) project at Maluti Adventist Hospital in Lesotho, a land-locked country surrounded by South Africa. This OVC project has recently been renamed ‘Bana Ba Rona’ (meaning ‘Our Children’).

2. FINANCIAL STATEMENT

CAP sent out GBP6000 in September 2006 which translated at the time into approximately R70,000 (South African Rand) after bank charges have been taken into account (approx R12 = GBP1). This money has been used as follows:

1. Mr Ntsapi has been employed full time as a field worker in the ‘Needs Assessment Program’. One of the many problems faced by Bana Ba Rona is assessing the needs of the almost 5,000 orphans in the area.
2. Travel costs for Mr Ntsapi.
3. Additional travel costs for other members of the ‘Needs Assessment Program’ team.
4. Full foster care for four orphans. The four foster mothers are receiving R350/month (R4200pa) plus R120/month (R1440pa) for formula etc.
5. We paid for some necessary repairs for an orphan-headed household.
6. These 34 orphans had no other means of getting access to educational supplies, approx R400 per orphan.
7. Contributions to a generic fund run by Bana Ba Rona.
8. The hospital has committed to providing free medical care for orphans. To help make this viable they put this amount in the Destitute Patients Fund. This fund relies entirely on donations from private donors. No large aid organisations give money to something as nebulous as this but it is a real and urgent need as two thirds of the hospital’s budget of R21 million must come from patient fees, the other third coming from the church (Which is in the process of phasing out their portion) and the government. If you take R25 as the average visit fee, this would cover 400 orphan visits. In reality there are over 3000 clinic visits by orphans charged to the DPF last year. This doesn’t take into account those who were admitted, which would up the costs significantly.