God, AIDS, Africa & HOPE

Reflections / Gedanken

11/10/2009 • 11:19 pm Comments Off on 10.11.2009 A long day…

10.11.2009 A long day…

… draws to an end. And a day which was defined by meetings, two major meetings. The first with the group which calls itself “working group POZ” and is driving the process of the pastoral care for priests and religious living with the virus. I reported back from my meeting with the Papal Council for Health Care Workers and other meetings related to this work. And we discussed the way forward trying to involve the level of bishops into our work  as proposed by the councils representative. So we will approach some bishops in the next time to get their support – the first I will see tomorrow is Archbishop Lawrence P Henry, who gave with his blessings the starting point for this joined work between the “Justice & Peace Commission of the Archdiocese of Cape Town” and HOPE Cape Town. It is a further step on a long way to bring the topic to the top of the church.

In the afternoon then first planing meeting and then management meeting of HOPE Cape Town. It is a productive time, a time to reflect and plan the necessary structures of HOPE Cape Town for the next time. What is running good, what has to be enhanced, what has to be corrected – how can we optimise the mechanism of work within HOPE Cape Town so that we deliver on our mission statement. But also the question where are our limits? What burden can we carry? Reports back, correspondence, requests – there is always so many things which waits for a decision or the next step ahead. At the end we all know that exciting times are lying ahead. Hopefully new and sufficient office space will be available still this year to accommodate the new working structures of HOPE Cape Town.  Kerstin, our future PA to chair and management has done her first 6 weeks and reports back. It is good to see how good she fits in and enjoys her work – and the HOPE Cape Town people enjoying working with her. It is always a blessing to see when people fit in nicely. Or our HOPE Cape Town doctor, who is with us already for 5 months, but it feels as she has been with us for some years.

I leave the meetings with the feeling that we are moving forward and that we are all willing to bring HOPE Cape Town to a new level of professionalism without losing the heart of the project. I feel encouraged that after months of soul-searching and pondering the right way we are now on this right way into a good future – for the sake of the people we try to assist. Thanks to everybody who contributed to todays productive meetings.

 

Filed under: HOPE Cape Town Association & Trust, Networking, , , , , , , , , , , ,

11/07/2009 • 12:19 am Comments Off on 07.11.2009 First day in office and a final letter …

07.11.2009 First day in office and a final letter …

A first day in office after all my travel, and as it is almost every time the case, first one has to sort out all the papers brought with me from the trip – and just have a look through all mails, emails and requests waiting for my arrival.

It is a vast to-do-list I have made today – but I am sure when I work through Saturday and Sunday, I will be able to start fresh into the new week – at least almost fresh.. 🙂 There are so many encounters with people, I still have to work through, so many challenges and obviously a good time-table and organisation of work is a must.

Tuesday we will have HOPE Cape Town planing meeting – then I know better what kind of travel I will have next year – with the Okeumenischer Kirchentag in Munich, Vienna World AIDS Conference, Hope Gala Dresden and Berliner Aidsgala as well as the Bundespostivenkonferenz,  meetings regarding the Charite Exhibition and a further meeting in Rome with the papal council there seems to be lots of travel ahead. I hope that I am able to coop with all the demands. But the circle of friends of HOPE Cape Town is growing

Today, my previous headquarter of the Kath. Auslandssekretariat der Deutschen Bischofskonferenz, the office dealing with the portfolio of German-speaking Catholic Communities, has given me notice, that they will cease taking donations for HOPE Cape Town. It seems that only the priest in the community counts – not the rest of the parish. The chairperson of the Pastoral Community Council is at the same time Chairperson of the HOPE Cape Town Association management – the project is not a “Stefan Hippler” initiative, but was an initiative out of the community – and HOPE Cape Town was until now a proud parent of HOPE Cape Town.

I will accept the ruling, why should I start arguing again – but I find it sad, that a clearly marked project which has identifiable links to the church and to the Cape Town German-speaking Catholic Community has now to rely on another way to channel the money and issue tax-deductible receipts. Thanks God I saw it come and the HOPE Kapstadt Stiftung can do all that in Germany. Nevertheless, I feel sad while another indication is sad, that personal dislikes of  one or two members of the Auslandssekretariats staff influence the donations stream for very needy people.

Evaluation of the higher legal interest would have done the trick.

But so, from February 2010 there will be no possiblity to send donation to HOPE Cape Town via the German Bishops Conference’s office of the Kath. Auslandssekretariat.

Filed under: General, HOPE Cape Town Association & Trust, Networking, Reflection, Uncategorized, , , , , , ,

11/04/2009 • 9:30 pm Comments Off on 04.11.2009 Farewell thoughts

04.11.2009 Farewell thoughts

Sitting at Frankfurt airport I can feel the how tired I am and how much I am looking forward to sleep while flying back to Cape Town. I will be happy to be back home again.

For 16 days I toured through Germany with a detour to Rome, I have had meetings, planing workshop, planing meeting, one2one meetings, telephone meetings, talks – I saw round about a 1000 people in those days – statistics can be interesting. Plans are made until 2013 – I feel the manager syndrome arriving on my doorsteps, but I guess many people are telling me that since years. The Ecumenical church day, the world aids conference, the Bundespositivenkonferenz, the world awareness campaign part two, the exhibition at the Charite Museum, a film project, quite some invitations, amongst them to speak also about economy and ethics as well as how to achieve a value system for one’s own life, motivational talks – the visit of bishops to bring the idea of the pastoral care for positive clergy via bishops conferences to Rome – I am this evening indeed sure that there will be no dull moment in my life for the next years to come. And I thought it will take time to find enough work in my new working environment

HOPE Cape Town will be re-structured a bit – new offices, partly changed job descriptions – the Catholic Aids Networks registration as a NPO and PBO and I guess also there is some restructuring necessary – I still have to write a contribution to a book published by the University of Trier – writing down for me all the “still have to do” list is frightening and challenging at the same time. But I am in a good spirit that all can be done, seeing all the marvellous colleagues giving a hand and taking a lead with me.

Next week we will have our management and planing meeting from HOPE Cape Town and then I will report back in detail and we will plan for the new year ahead. Despite my tiredness I can feel the dynamics of networking – the possibilities lying ahead and I once again don’t understand the stand of many NGO’s which are so protective of their work and see most others as competition rather than a completion to their own work. This year I have seen some naughty incidents were other NGO’s were not afraid to try to lure away sponsors on our very own events. There are still so many feathers to earn in South Africa – and there are also so many willing sponsors if you have a good programme – there is no need to fight each other for anything.

 

Filed under: General, HOPE Cape Town Association & Trust, Networking, Reflection, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

11/04/2009 • 11:27 am Comments Off on 04.11.2009 new pics from the HOPE Gala Dresden…

04.11.2009 new pics from the HOPE Gala Dresden…

and some new pics from the HOPE Gala Dresden 2009 – Enjoy

 

http://foto.pukmedia.eu/veranstaltungen/HOPE-Gala-2009/2009-10-31_23-09-11.jpg.html

Filed under: General, Networking, Uncategorized, , ,

11/04/2009 • 11:15 am 1

04.11.2009 Positive clergy

At the end of my stay in Germany I have had a meeting with a representative of the Archdiocese of Munich to discuss with him several matters. One was my request to the Archbishop of Munich to support my work in the fields of HIV/AIDS when it comes to priests, religious, clergy being positive. It is a tricky question but a very important one: how we deal with those amongst us, who are HIV positive.

I will visit in the near future some South African bishops as well to discuss this topic and to try to bring it to Rome. “It will raise some eyebrows”, so a member of the papal council for health care worker in Rome, but he also sees it as necessary to face this question. For me it has to do with justice within the church – all what we proclaim outside how to deal with people being HIV positive we must apply within the church. A long way to go, but all starts with the first mile. And I am grateful to all who are part of this new project.

www.hopecapetown.com/poz

Filed under: HIV and AIDS, Networking, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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