HACkers blog

Please see below for a call for volunteers to assist with a second site assessment survey this Thursday.  The training is today 28 May at 15h00 at 122 Longmarket St (between Adderley and St. Georges Mall) on the 4th Floor. These site assessment surveys are of critical importance in directing appropriate assistance to the more than 60 holding sites across the greater Cape Town area.

Dear Colleagues:
As some of you may know, on Sunday, working with UCT medical students
through SHAWCO and a number of individual physicians, we conducted a
rapid site health assessment survey of 33 different locations
sheltering displaced persons around the Cape Town metropolitan area.
We shared our data with the city and the province and they have taken
our questionnaire (developed by MSF) and database and are using these
instruments for their own work.
We've met with city and provincial health officials and are supporting
their work to address the current crisis by continuing to collect
reports on the now approximately 60 sites around the city as well as
soliciting health professionals for volunteer deployment around the
metro area through the health departments.
In order to get an independent assessment of the state of relief
efforts and the state of the city's and province's responses, we'd
like to conduct another site survey on Thursday 29 May.  This will be
done the same way as Sunday's survey, with teams of two going out to
the now 60+ sites, and reporting back to us within 3-4 hours, and with
us compiling data by 18h00 on Thursday evening.
THUS, TOMORROW AFTERNOON  Wednesday 28 May at 15h00 at 122 Longmarket
St (between Adderley and St. Georges Mall) on the 4th Floor, we'll be
conducting a training for those who would like to assist with Thursday
survey. It will be a one-hour training to brief you on the survey
methodology, the tasks we're asking of the teams, as well as to
allocate team assignments and instructions.  We're looking for anyone
who can devote much of Thursday to this project--it will take a few
hours to collect the data at the sites and then return to 122
Longmarket for data entry. We would hope teams would be at sites by
09h00 on Thursday and back to 122 Longmarket St by 15h00.  While it is
largely a health survey, it doesn't necessarily require medical
training at all, but it would be good for people to have some
familiarity with health issues.  We need people with cars, since the
survey work requires driving from site to site in the morning.
If you are interested in assisting us, please show up tomorrow
afternoon Wednesday 28 at 15h00 at AIDS Law Project, 122 Longmarket
Street, 4th Floor for the training.
Gregg

--
Gregg Gonsalves
AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa
c/o AIDS Law Project
Westminster House, 4th Floor
122 Longmarket Street
Cape Town, 8001
South Africa
Mobile: +27-78-456-3848
Landline: +27-21-422-1490
Email: gregg.gonsalves@gmail.com
Skype: gregggonsalves

Perhaps the truest tragedy is the way some politicians are using the situation for their own personal politicking. The press is full of accusations, finger-pointing, and attempts to score points off political opponents. And general WTF?!?

The Soccer World Cup LOC dude who shrugged off the issue, saying it would have blown over by 2010. Oh, so that's fine then.  

The mayor, who wants refugees out of churches, so that they can be used for weddings. Nice - when people's lives are at risk, let's focus on the truly important stuff, like parties.

Was it coincidence that the evening after reports of the mayor told a drug vigilante group that the attacks were linked to drug dealing, that the violence spread to this city? Perhaps, but that makes inflammatory statements no less irresponsible. 

Is this really what we've sunk to - a bunch of smug bigots who can't think beyond parties and ball games?