Maboshe Memorial Centre (MMC)

Maboshe Memorial Centre (MMC) is a community based not-for-profit making NGO founded in 2006 and registered under the laws of Zambia, MMC works where others do not – in rural and remote areas of Western, Zambia – and where access to services is the poorest and is dedicated to and implementing self and donor funded projects of supporting community responses with aims to partnership and collaboration at local, national, regional and international levels for safeguard sexual and reproductive health adolescents, access to family planning information, safe motherhood, gender sensitive services, comprehensive HIV/AIDS response, integration of sexual and gender based violence into HIV/AIDS, IEC on HIV/AIDS information, psychosocial support, quality ART services, health care providers on ART service provision, HIV palliative care services and TB treatment, mainstreaming disabilities and social economic justice on poverty, suffering and social injustice, establish operational and effective HIV & AIDS workplace programs that address the needs of institutions, and increase access to prevention, care & treatment for staff and their families, prevention to care, support, and mitigation, building on organization in capacity building, community mobilization, child rights, and child participation to reach the epidemic's most affected populations: orphans and vulnerable children, youth at risk, pregnant women and HIV/AIDS information centers, peer education activities, school and community-based prevention outreach for young people, voluntary counseling and testing service strengthening and community home-based care for children living with HIV/AIDS, support to food and nutrition aid and livelihood support to transform the lives of vulnerable children, protect children against HIV through extensive PMTCT services, age-specific HIV information, and access to child friendly reproductive health and HIV counseling and testing services, empowering communities through capacity building, advocacy on human rights, protection, gender considerations and anti-retroviral treatment (ART) for children.

MMC operates as a rural/remote organization in Western, Zambia with its secretariat located in Mongu.

Goal

To improve the quality of lives of vulnerable children in rural/remote communities.

Vision

"A healthy Zambia free from threat of HIV/AIDS ".

Mission Statement

To collaborate with relevant stakeholders in providing quality social services in health, education and capacity building for improved rural/remote communities.

Core Values

• Inclusion/Participation
• Rights Based
• Equity/Responsibility
• Equality
• Partnership
• Transparency/ Accountability
• Non Discriminatory

Objectives

1. To ensure the provision of quality and comprehensive care and support to orphans and vulnerable children;
2. To provide financial and material support to vulnerable elderly people (caregivers and elderly people)
3. To promote and advocate to government to scale up the welfare assistance for elderly people
4. To improve access to information and utilization of quality VCT, Mother to Child Transmission (PMTCT)/SRH/MNCHservices;
5. To improve the quality of life of HIV infected children and their families through the provision of community home based care and referring clients to other service providers within the district.
6. To facilitate access to health care for children with disabilities (CWDs).
7. To strengthen the organizational and technical capacity of MMC to respond more sustainably and effectively to HIV/AIDS; and
8. To improve the institutional and policy environment for community led responses in Zambia

Networking

The essence of networking for MMC is to share resources and action strategies in working for rural/remote community empowerment. Networking allows MMC to stay in touch with what is happening locally, regionally and internationally and use the information and resources gathered in efforts to help the Zambian rural/remote communities.

Governance structure

The Secretariat:Headed by the Country Director, the Secretariat manages the day-to-day running of the organization on full time with a current staff.

Each of the above play specific roles and responsibilities in accordance with their respective professional qualifications, skills and expertise towards attaining a prosperous and professional face for MMC and also contribute to the building of the integrity and capacity of the organization both at Secretariat and District Offices.

The Secretariat provides the highest level of commitment to ensure that costed, inclusive, sustainable, credible and evidence-based HIV/AIDS and other community programme plans both at national and District Offices levels are funded and implemented with transparency, accountability and effectiveness, in line with national priorities.

The Executive Board: The overall management and administration of MMC is run through an Executive Board, comprising 10 members elected from the more than 100 member organizations and support groups affiliated to MMC. The Executive Board represents MMC in a responsible and appropriate manner in all meetings and public functions and serves as the organization's spokesperson through the Executive Board Chairperson.

The tenure of office of the Executive Board is two years for which positions are re-contested upon an outgoing Board Member's desire. MMC strives to achieve a balanced representation onto the Executive Board taking into account gender and the Greater Involvement of Children Living with AIDS and Disabled (GIPA/D) Principle. It is also the responsibility of the Executive Board to administer the financial affairs of MMC and; to invest the funds and assets of the organization in securities nominated by it and to realise and deal with such investments at its discretion. The Executive Board also hold, lease and own property of any kind in the name of MMC.

Community Clubs: These are structures operating under the supervision of the District Offices and they are responsible for articulating and driving forwards the mandate, supervision and support of the community clubs. These structures (community clubs) are for vulnerable people such as:-Children with disabilities (CWDs), Old People, OVCs, Children living with HIV/AIDS.

MMC is governed by the Board who has executive powers for policy direction and supervision of the Secretariat. The Board is drawn from the membership organization. While the secretariat headed by the Country Director is the implementing organ of Maboshe Memorial Centre (MMC). The apex Board for Maboshe Memorial Centre (MMC) is the Annual General Meeting (AGM). The organization is structured such that it goes down to the grass root where there are beneficiaries who are later organized in community clubs. These Community clubs feed into the District MMC Office operation

A list of specific objectives and activities

Details of the specific objectives and activities to be carried by MMC are described below.

(1). To ensure the provision of quality and comprehensive care and support to orphans and vulnerable children

• Registration of OVCs and development of a database of all OVCs in the districts in which MMC operates
• Training and retraining care givers and community volunteers in all aspects of care and support for orphans and other vulnerable children
• Assisting communities to acquire birth certificates for orphans and other vulnerable children in order to facilitate their access to education and other entitlements from the government
• Provision of vocational and life-skills training to orphans and other vulnerable children

• Provision of income generation skills as well Agricultural Inputs to older person or orphan headed households to improve the quality of their livelihoods and ability to cope
• Provide provision of learning materials under education support
• Provide nutritional support ( food parcels)
• Educational support for OVCs and Children with disabilities through the payment of school fees
• Provide Psycho-social support training to OVC and caregivers
• Train OVCs as peer educators
• Train care givers
• Reintegrating OVCs in to the family system
• Registration for Birth Certificates
• Conduct awareness campaigns on the rights of Children
• Establish counselling centres in communities and community schools
• To improve the health standards of rural/remote communities through improved access to safe and adequate water supplies and sanitation.

(2). To provide financial and material support to vulnerable elderly people (caregivers and elderly people)

• Facilitate the provision of seed funding packs to elderly people and their dependent
• Provision of nutritional support through food hampers
• Provision of material support such as blankets, clothes, soaps, etc.
• To improve the health standards of rural/remote communities through improved access to safe and adequate water supplies and sanitation.

(3). To promote and advocate to government to scale up the welfare assistance for elderly people

• Increase public awareness on the availability of social welfare grants in order to facilitate access to social welfare scheme
• Provision of assistance to the elderly to access their entitlements to government and community services;
• Establishment of the Voices of Senior Citizens (VSC) groups and training of VSC on advocacy

(4). To improve access to and utilization of quality VCT services

• Training and retraining peer educators and lay counsellors to provide quality IEC
• Educate young girls and boys on transactional and intergenerational relationships
• Conducting quarterly stakeholders meetings and community feedback in order to create ownership
• Creating learning and sharing platforms and workshops and forums
• Increase the number of individual (one-on-one) peer counselling sessions
• Increase youth participation in sporting activities such as Kicking AIDS and Love Life games
• Increasing campaigns in order to create awareness in the communities on VCT, ARTs, PMTCT etc.
• Develop a simplified referral system of the PMTCT, OI, VCT, HBC and OVC activities
• Establishment of post test support services to promote meaningful involvement of CLHIV in the programme
• Train youths as peer educators in counselling
• Mobile VCT services in communities in conjunction with partner organization.
• Awareness raising on VCT among youths
• Mobile VCT clinics within the communities
• Promotion of VCT through drama, radio, IEC and meetings
• Promotion of couples testing together

(5). To improve the quality of life of HIV infected children and their families through the provision of community home based care

• Training and retraining family care givers and community volunteers in all aspects of home based care and support for HIV infected children and their families
• Training family care givers and community volunteers to become treatment supporters for HIV infected children that are on ARV therapy thus ensuring adherence;
• Provision of income generation skills as well as seed resources to HIV infected children, and their families to improve the quality of their livelihoods and ability to cope;
• Provision of assistance to HIV infected children and their families to access their entitlements to government and community services;
• Condoms /IEC Distribution to out of School youths
• Demonstrations on proper usage of male and female condoms
• Train caregivers and health personnel in sign language

(6). To facilitate access to health care for children with disabilities (CWDs)

• Identification and documentation and referral of children with disabilities (CWDs) to access appropriate services, including meaningful access to health care
• Facilitation and advocacy to access to mobility aids such as crutches, wheelchairs and hearing aids for children with disabilities (CWDs).

• Training of community resource people to identify and document children with disabilities (CWDs) and refer to appropriate services
• Build/ Rehabilitate user friendly infrastructures
• Referral System
• Advocacy on rights of children with disabilities (CWDs).
• Educational and Nutritional Support
• Enhancing household food security through revolving funds
• Hold advocacy meetings with policy makers
• Train care givers and health personnel in sign language
• Conduct community sensitization meetings on the rights of children with disabilities (CWDs).
• Provide mobility aid to children with disabilities (CWDs).
• Stakeholders meeting on the rights and accessibility of health services for children with disabilities (CWDs).
• To advocate and rehabilitate public schools to promote inclusive education for children with disabilities (CWDs).
• To improve the health standards of rural/remote communities through improved access to safe and adequate water supplies and sanitation for children with disabilities (CWDs).

(7). To strengthen the organizational and technical capacity of MMC to respond more sustainably and effectively to HIV/AIDS.

• Training of board members and executive staff on governance, financial management, human resources, resource mobilization and monitoring and evaluation
• Increase the level of on the job-support by partners and others on M&E, finance, administration etc.
• Develop and implement institutional work flow process that will culminate into MMC becoming a fully fledged NGO
• Recruitment of new staff

(8). To improve the institutional and policy environment for community led responses in Zambia

• Development of sensitization IEC campaigns in the print and electronic media.
• Participation in various policy and advocacy activities that contribute to improving the institutional and policy environment for HIV infected children and their families and orphans and other vulnerable children;

• Creating learning and sharing platforms with government, and civil society partners
• Conducting workshops on community involvement in the policy process making
• Creation of an operational coordination framework
• Capacity building for programming HIV/AIDS activities
• Capacity building in the MMC offices
• Mobilize resources for acquisition of transport
• Develop a three years strategic plan
• Internal financial management systems and procedures developed
• M & E tool developed
• Establishing an effective and appropriate management system
• Acquire own office spaces in Western and Southern Province
• Mobilize funds to purchase acquire appropriate office supplies
• Improve media relationship
• Training of MMC in HIV/AIDS peer education which focus on programming and planning skills and proposal development

• Purchase of lands/space
• Acquisition of funds for operational costs
• Employment of more staff and on monthly salaries
• Mobilize funds to support district offices
• Acquisition of vehicles, motor bikes and allocation of operational funds
• Work plan implementation
• Transparent and efficient management of financial resources
• Information available on member's implementation of programmes
• Contacts between MMC staffs and other HIV/AIDS service organizations
• Increased MMC support to MMC district (rural/remote) based offices.
• Stakeholders meeting with the Donor communities for MMC to lobby for more grants support.

Sustainability

For organizational sustainability, MMC offers consultancy and training in a variety of subjects at a fee, some areas of training and consultancy include:

• Maboshe Memorial Centre (MMC) has continued to mobilize own resources and implementation of long term action plan.
• Develop proposal for demonstration programme in Western and Southern provinces and to seek donor/government funding for the proposal.
• Resource Centres Internet Services.

Current Operational Areas

Western Province

• Mongu District
• Senanga District
• Shangombo District
• Kalabo District
• Lukulu District
• Kaoma District
• Sesheke District
• Mulobezi District
• Nalolo District
• Sikongo District

Challenges

MMC has a vision to reach out to more rural/remote vulnerable church and communities in Western, Zambia but it faces the problem of limited resources especially financial resources, inadequate transport is also a major challenge including lack of incentives to motivate our local community based volunteers.