More Resources Archives

Midwifery & Dying Conference

At Soulfull Collective‘s conference on Midwifery & Death, participants collated the following lists of local resources:

Training Providers
• Abundant Life
• Sacred Dying SA – Doula online courses. Call Mona on 076 401 6844
• www.geratecza.com
• www.mindsmatter.co.za
• Soula (Soul Doula) Training for birth and end of life www.robynsheldon.com
• End of Life Academy (ELSA)
• PATCHSA + Bettercare books = SA children’s palliative care network www.pathchsa.org
• UCT’s Diploma in Palliative Medicine – adults and paeds
• Cameron Hogg www.uniomystica.co.za
• St Luke’s Combined Hospices (SLCH) offers bereavement support course and Introduction to Palliative Care for Home Based Carers
• Judy Bekker of Renaissance Business Associates offers Deep Listening and Facilitation training
• Hospices: HPCA info@hpca.co.za
• Soul Carers Network – Mary Ryan
• Conversation Dialogue Skills – Vicky Coates (082 413 6132) & Nima Taylor (076 024 9120)
• Gill Faris offers tailor made training
• Mama Nurture offers Perinatal Bereavement Doula training nationally as well as bereavement training for NICU nurses and labour/ maternity ward midwives. Contact Samala Kriedemann 083 389 6929, samala@mama-nurture.co.za www.mama-nurture.co.za
• SBD Families online
• Zen Coaching, contact Lisa Garso
• Peter Maltitz, sangoma
• Afrocentric mediation, Bukelwa Sigila
• Love Legacy Dignity offers one day training “The Ultimate in Personal Mastery” and customised conversation training for lawyers and financial advisors
• Christine Nachmann, end of life and bereavement counselling cnachmann@gmail.com
• Rhoda Isaacs offers PowerPoint, design and proofreading services ibrhoda@gmail.com

Organisations & Umbrella Bodies
• Cape Care 021 674 6897
• Sacred Dying SA 076 401 6844
• Abundant Life abundantlife.victoria@gmail.com
• Chariot Helath palliative home based carers
• PATCH SA – SA Children’s Palliative Care Network www.patchsa.org
• PalPrac (doctors specialised in palliative care)
• St. Luke’s Combined Hospices (SLCH)
• Hospice Palliative Care Association of SA info@hpca.co.za
• The Voice of the Unborn Child (NPC) sonja@ssfg.co.za
• ELSA – End of Life Supportive Alliance
• Retirement Villages – Health Care Centres (Frail Care)
• The Soul Café in Broadacres, Johannesburg
• Sonja Smith Elite Funerals
• Conscious Dying South Africa https://www.facebook.com/groups/549224178765963/
• Death Cafés
• ICPCN – International Children’s Palliative Care Network
• www.lovelegacydignity.com
• Iris House Children’s Hospice

Communities of Practice & Localised Support
• St John, contact Pat Gelderblom
• Abundant Life
• Pasedspal in Rondebosch, Cape Town www.paedspal.org.za children’s palliative care
• Ikamva Labantu, contact Ntomboxolo Siko, Thandeka Dumeko & Mthunzi Funo
• St Luke’s Combined Hospices – Do St. Luke’s Basic Hospice Course, become a volunteer
021 797 5335
• Hospices: HPCA info@hpca.co.za
• Cape Care
• Iris House Children’s Hospices provides free respite care for families who have a member with a life-limiting or life-threatening condition
• Nechama Counselling for the Bereaved
• ELSA
• Soul Carers Network
• Soulcafe.co.za and Sonja Smith
• Elite Funerals
• Love Legacy Dignity
• Triangle Project
• Kagyu Samye Dzeng offer regular meditation and mindfulness
• Kenilworth Bargo group, Buddhist centre
• Death Cafes – Southern suburbs and at The Kitche in Woodstock
• Baby loss support groups, Luzanne Horn in Claremont 082 941 9389
• Mindful Living Health Practitioners, Cath Valentine 082 825 0337

Advocates
• Dr. Michelle Meiring – Paedspal & PATCHSA (palliative treatment for children SA, wwww.patchsa.org)
• Keshnie Mathi – EOLA (ELSA), ASCHP certified EOL Counsellor’s Course
• Abundant Life
• Dignity SA
• Dr. Liz Gwyther, Division of Family Medicine, UCT
• www.lovelegacydignity.com

Rites of Passage

Vision Questing

A Vision Quest is an ancient wilderness tradition that draws on the arc of Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey, namely separation from community, initiation and return with gift. I experienced this very special opportunity to reflect on my life and my path forward when I was twenty-three and I wanted to Pay it Forward to the students at TSiBA. Therefore, our students’ experience at the university was bookended by time in the wilderness. The nine-day long Rites of Passage programme that we offered the students when they had finished and were on the brink of entering the world of work, included two days and nights of solo time.

Here is Ntombiza Lingani, an alumnus who has become a colleague and dear friend, talking about her wilderness experience:

Rites of Passage

Naming Ceremony

Naming ceremonies can be a beautiful and personal way to welcome children in to the world. Here my friend Julie writes movingly about the ceremonies that she and her husband Iain crafted for their babies.

“Children come to us in many ways. My husband and I have adopted both our children and adoption calls for a careful introduction into a family circle. I didn’t have the luxury of pregnancy to get used to the idea of a baby; a birthday is something an adoptive mother doesn’t get to witness. The day our daughter arrived in our life was the day she was born into our hearts and as a couple this was profound. Two years later the three of us as opened our hearts once more when Jack arrived home and was born to us.

Introducing our children to the world was a time for celebration. A time to pay attention to the new little person as they took their place in our world, in our universe and in our hearts.

We felt it was important to create a single day completely dedicated to the spirit birth of each of our children. And so we discovered the naming ceremony as the perfect ceremony in which to do that. Leigh custom designed a program around each child. She created the space for us as a family to feel as if our child had been seen in a way no other child had been seen. It was unique and precious. Guests were asked to bring a Spirit Gift that would embody their wish that could take the form of a book, a leaf, a tree, a poem, a song, a word… they were invited to speak out their offering or stay silent. What was so profound was the feeling of love for our child, there was a sense of deep spirituality but without connection to one religious calling. The ceremony opened a pathway to all that is bigger than us that will always offer us spiritual guidance and support. We will always remember this day with great joy.

Together we came up with symbolic offerings each person at the ceremony could give to them. In Zoë’s ceremony, we chose a bowl of beads and each person chose and strung their bead to create a unique necklace for Zoë. For Jack we chose white stones that people could write a message on and give to him.

It felt like our family was being held and carried by waves of love and acceptance. The name we gave our child was spoken in so many ways that day that it had a real opportunity to settle on the child, on the family, and in the community. The naming ceremony was a beautiful gift to receive as a family and I believe has impacted on how we are received by the witnesses and how we are still perceived today. It was a defining moment in the character that our family embodied and is held deep in our spirit memory.”