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CASE STUDY
Rejoice Urban
Development Project
HIV/Aids Medical Home Care Unit
BCTFN
Started working with Rejoice Urban Development Project
in 1999 assisting with their HIV/Aids project. The BCTFN
assist Rejoice with funding for the purchase of
medicines. BCTFN donates 30,000 Baht per month.
This Rejoice care
unit travels to homes and communities to serve the
medical and emotional care needs of poor people
suffering from HIV/Aids infection. The programme
provides free, ongoing care to communities which lack
adequate medical services.
  
In addition to treatment,
Rejoice provides patients and their family members with
basic medical training to enable them to care for
themselves on an ongoing basis. This training reduces
the unfounded fears that can cause stigma and isolation
from families and communities.
Fully operational since
January 1998, Rejoice today serves a population of very
poor, sick and underprivileged people living in urban
slums, impoverished villages and the surrounding hill
tribe areas. In particular, Rejoice with funding
assistance from BCTFN and other sponsors provide the
medical and social support so desperately needed by
people infected with or affected by HIV/Aids.
What are the benefits of
Rejoice’s activities?
-
Prevention
of the spread of HIV by educating locals about the
disease and how to protect themselves from it, by
increasing health standards and by the use of
condoms, supplied by Rejoice or obtained elsewhere.
Rejoice treats minor sexually transmitted infections
such as herpes and gives advice on how to seek
treatment for more serious ones. Sex workers are
educated on how to create a safer environment for
themselves. Mothers are supplied with baby formula
milk and community action is supported and promoted.
Individuals are empowered through skill transfer,
especially among the poor, women and children.
-
The
impact of HIV on the people and communities of
Chiang Mai is reduced by providing badly needed
community and home based health care of which BCTFN
contribute monthly, by providing orphans of Aids
with education, health care, and emotional support,
and by erasing the social stigma associated with
HIV/Aids through education.
-
Reduction
in the social and economic strain on the local
communities, caused by the HIV/Aids epidemic,
through HIV prevention and education, as well as by
improving the health of individuals and the
community.
Who are the
Beneficiaries?
The direct beneficiaries of our
projects are the poor, women, children, sex workers, drug
users and other marginalised groups such as local hill tribe
communities. These are the people most affected by
HIV/Aids, suffering from a high rate of transmission and few
resources to cope with the many problems associated with the
disease. Rejoice serves approximately 1,000 families in the
Chiang Mai Province. Of these families, approximately 60%
are women, 50% are children, 15% are from hill tribe
communities, and 15% are sex workers. Without the services
of Rejoice and BCTFN, these people would have little or no
access to basic health care, no education about how to
improve their own health standards and very few social and
emotional support systems to help cope with the consequences
of HIV/Aids.
 
Providing access to basic
health care in the homes of community members and improving
their health standards through medical services, education
and skill transfer directly affects the economic burden
placed on community members by the HIV/Aids epidemic.
Through Rejoice services and BCTFN’S generous monthly
funding contributions, clientele can return to work and
provide for their families, orphaned children can return to
school and receive the education they deserve, an
environment is created that allows clientele to free
themselves from the vicious cycle of poverty, and a social
and emotional support network is created that gives them a
much needed voice in the community. All of these benefits
of Rejoice services have a direct link to the alleviation of
poverty in the Chiang Mai Province.
Rejoice’s care giving methods
are unique. The approach is not simply to treat the patients
and leave them to convalesce, but also to assist the patient
and family to come to terms with their terminal disease. The
Rejoice team creates a family support system and prepares
families for the often gruelling long-term care of one or
more family members. It also offers a much-needed outside
source of social support to family caregivers. Rejoice helps
minimise their experience of being overwhelmed and alone in
facing what is often the death of multiple family members.
Aids affects entire families
and not just the infected individual. In most households,
more than one family member is infected with, and eventually
dies from, Aids. Moreover, the most severely ill family
member is often cared for by another family member, who is
also HIV-positive. Rejoice is aware of these factors and
structures its services to address the diverse needs of the
affected families.
Details
UNAIDS, the
World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Royal Thai
government all estimate that there are at present
approximately 90,000 people in Chiang Mai province suffering
from HIV/Aids and related illnesses. This figure includes an
estimated 4,000 people in the terminal stages of Aids. In
the upper North, adjacent to the Chiang Mai province, an
additional 400,000 people are thought to be infected.
Thailand has a population of
about 70 million people. In 2002 the Royal Thai government
estimated that 1 in 60 of the population, or just over 1%,
was infected with HIV. However, the WHO believes that a
further 20% can be added to this figure, bringing the
proportion infected with HIV to almost 3%, or about 2.6
million people.
Chiang Mai is situated in the
upper-northern part of Thailand, about 1,027 feet above sea
level. The province’s capital, Chiang Mai City, is around
720 kilometres and one hour by air from the capital,
Bangkok. With a land area of 20,107 square kilometres,
Chiang Mai province is the second largest in the country.
About 83% of the land area is covered by mountains and
forests, 13% is cultivated by farmers and 5% is used for
residential and other purposes.
The current population of
Chiang Mai Province is estimated by the Thai government at
around 2.7 million people. There are 1,072 communities
dispersed throughout the province. Ethnic groups include
eleven major tribes: Karen, Lahu, Lisu, Lawa, Akha, Yao,
Meo, Khamu, Hmong, Barong and tribal Chinese, plus several
smaller minority groups, such as the Shan and Chin
nationals. However, this diversity often leads to a
fragmentation of the population into ethnic enclaves, each
possessing a distinct set of medical and social needs.
The Aids virus is a devastating
common denominator among all of these sub-populations.
Chiang Mai had the misfortune of being one of the earliest
epicentres of the Aids epidemic in Thailand. Today, the
increasing number of infected individuals succumbing to
Aids-related diseases has given rise to additional economic
and social needs as well as the usual medical ones among the
local population. |
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