What is the goal and objective of this programme?

loveLife’s goGogetters are a network of 500 grandmothers across South Africa, committed to preventing HIV infection among orphaned and vulnerable children. They champion the cause of over 5,000 young people, by trying to:

• Make them feel they belong.
• Keep them at school.
• Secure access to social security grants to which they’re entitled.
• Prevent physical, sexual and emotional abuse.
• Keep them from going hungry.

What is the goal and objective of this programme?

Goal:

The goal of this project is to demonstrate how community-level support to orphans and vulnerable children can be enhanced and expanded in a sustainable manner.

• Recruit and equip a cadre of 500 goGogetters to provide care & support to 10,000 OVC within two years.
• Mobilize grandparents across South Africa to support OVC by promoting the goGogetter initiative on national and regional media (both existing loveLife media and popular press).
• Develop the goGogetter initiative as a demonstration project providing input to the current investigation and review of social support to OVC by national Treasury and the Dept of Social Development in South Africa

What do goGogetters do?

In general a goGogetters is:

1. An adult ally for orphans and vulnerable children
   As an adult ally for orphans and vulnerable children she:
   
   • Is and adult friend to the child:
     Listens to the child and gives advice and guidance from her own wisdom/life experience/compassion. She checks regularly how the child is doing and engages with the child on a regular basis.
   • Is a problem-solver for the child:
     Many problems children cannot solve their own, on a practical level the goGogetter identify the problem and try to solve these problems for the child (for example, if the child don’t have a school uniform the goGogetter tries her very best to find a school uniform for the child).


2. An activist in her community
   As an activist in her community she:
   
   • Creates awareness in the community around the problems that they face as a community (especially those issues affecting the children and young people of the community) and she motivates them to address these problems together. She does this by talking to as many people as she can either individually or as groups.
   • Involving the community and others in solving the problems of the OVCs

Specifically they aim to:

Each support 10-20 children/teenagers by:

• Ensuring they attend and complete school
• Improving their access to food
• Ensuring that they access the social security grants to which they may be entitled
• Trying to prevent that they are abused (sexual, physical or emotional)
• Talking with them about their aspirations, HIV, relationships, sex and sexuality (facilitating a sense of belonging, future-focus and personal development)

goGogetters do the work by working with local stakeholders and role-players (for example, social workers from the Department of Social Development, the local SASSA office, the school principal, churches and NGOs like loveLife) to change the situation of a child (that leaves them very vulnerable) to a situation where they are less vulnerable.

How did the goGogetter programme get started?

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has provided a two-year grant of $3.4 million to establish an innovative programme for HIV prevention among orphans and vulnerable children. loveLife partners over 700 community based organisations, public clinics and youth centres across South Africa and goGogetters were selected in 200 of these ‘hubs’. Geographically, the goGogetters are clustered to enable groups of goGogetters to support one another and to be able to test the effect of the programme in specific areas. The largest clusters of goGogetters are in the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga, Limpopo and North West. Most goGogetters were already ‘activists’ in their communities – offering soup kitchens or shelter to children in need, but felt limited by the lack of access to resources and government systems.
Each goGogetter was tasked with identifying ten teenagers and older children in the first year that required their support. They were allowed to include their own grandchildren if their parents were missing or had died. goGogetters were provided with an introductory training seminar over five days. Their first task was to assess the status of the children and teenagers, with respect to the five key areas of mandate.
With the assistance of loveLife and other organisations such as the Alliance for Children’s Entitlement to Social Security (ACESS), the goGogetters are then helped to begin to address the specific needs they have identified.

Over the next year, we hope to identify some of the most effective strategies for HIV prevention and personal growth and development of children and teenagers at high risk. We will continue to interact with Government departments and civil society to give more power to goGogetters in helping orphans and vulnerable children stay free of HIV and reach their full potential.