Intervention Services rendered at Lighthouse-Ermelo

All addicts want to be free from their addiction, but the road to recovery from it is as long and hard as the circumstances that drove them to drugs in the first place. Statistically in South Africa only 1 in 8 people who need rehabilitation will actually receive it. It is very discouraging for someone to find out that they will probably wait a few months or longer to be admitted to a provincial Rehab facility (if they manage to achieve all the requirements). This is where we brought in Project Exodus. Project Exodus in short is “outpatient Rehab”. Therefore, our PEX Recovery support groups are for those who are trying to wean themselves off drugs and those willing to start to help themselves to a better life; to help shorten the gap between their current circumstances and receiving lasting recovery, on their own as part of the support groups.  Project Exodus Recovery support groups are part of the breakthrough for addicts on the streets. It covers a wide range of addiction: substance abuse as well as behavioral addiction like pornography, gambling and gaming. We have addiction support groups at the Lighthouse Monday to Friday. 

At LHE, our Social Worker,  render all social welfare services to our clients, including:

• Support & Educational group sessions
• Individual sessions, covering a wide range of counselling e.g. trauma, grief,  etc.
• Psychosocial support
• Applications to Rehabilitation Centres
• Reunification & reintegration services
• Family mediation 

The Department of Health has partnered with LHE since June 2023 by providing a monthly Mobile Clinic Service at Lighthouse-Ermelo. Our clients benefit from every clinic service and it is provided by the most friendly and efficient medical team. Clinical services include check-ups, HIV treatment dispense, wound care, immunizations, etc.

Most of the clients of LHE are either affected or infected by HIV.  Because of the high risk lifestyle on the streets, people get exposed through needle sharing and unprotected sex.  Our aim is to encourage people living with HIV who is not part of a care program, to seek support, receive the necessary care and achieve viral suppression by taking antiretroviral therapy (ART). 

The  Soup Kitchen is open 10am to 3pm Mondays to Fridays. (The Centre’s opening hours are Mondays to Fridays 8am to 4pm.) 

We provide a warm cooked meal every day and we serve everyone one meal. Those who want an extra meal has to help us in the garden or around the Lighthouse first. We plan the menu according to the food donations we receive, and cook it tastefully and also suitable for the sensitive stomachs of most of our clients. (Nyaope has a terrible effect on the digestive system). 

 We provide as far as possible a set of clothes when needed. Though we do get a lot of clothing donations, we have specific needs for small sizes, men and women’s clothes and shoes. (High school sizes for reference). Unfortunately clothes, and especially shoes do not last more than a few weeks on the streets, and then we replace them. We keep record of the clothes and shoes that we give out.  What we need most are men's sizes 28-32, T-shirts S or M, shoe sizes no. 6 — 10. We do use the size 11 and 12’s for some of our clients as well. 

We offer shower facilities on the premises.  Clients who want to shower are required to help us with something at the Centre first. Usually it is working in the vegetable garden (for men) or in the kitchen (ladies), cleaning the stoep and grounds, etc. While the rule is for 2 hours, most clients cannot manage more than half an hour, so we don’t force them past what they are able to physically do. We reward them  for their willingness to help and good attitude. We provide a shower pack with toiletries to clients, which is returned to us for safe keeping afterwards. The shower times are 10am to 2:30pm. There is no showering during load shedding or thunder. 

We started to expand the garden to different parts of the grounds for different veggies. We have strawberries, blueberries and raspberries in the garden too. We hope to grow all of our fresh vegetables for our meals eventually. The Working-on-Fire team has also adopted a part of our grounds, which they helped us to prepare and make it into another vegetable garden. One of our donors have built the contour walls of this new vedge garden, in preparation for tunnels and sprinklers in the future, and we have many plans for our new addition. At the moment as it is, it hosts our winter veggies. We also started with a medicinal garden, which includes Comfrey, Yarrow, Aloe Arborescens, Bulbinella and Artimisia Afra so far. We want to make it a signature garden at our entrance. We always appreciate donations of seedlings, seeds, compost, organic fertilizer and cattle and chicken manure. We are prepping a mountain of compost for our garden, any manure and soil you want to contribute with this effort of ours, will be much appreciated!

 We have a laundry available to clients to wash their clothes and we provide laundry detergent and a set of clean clothes to first time users. The rule of helping at the Centre first, before using the facility, applies to the Laundry as well. The laundry hours are 10am to 12pm on sunny days,  so that there is enough time for them to dry their clothes