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CommonAge scholarship delegate Sister Lucia Raseipone from South Africa
South African Sister Lucia Raseipone has accepted our scholarship offer to attend the IAHSA/ACSA conference, 30 August – 3 September in Perth next week.
This former pre-school teacher is now the manager of St Antonine’s Home for the Aged, a uniquely African facility in rural Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa. Hers has been a journey of personal transformation, a transformation mirrored in the lives of her staff and her residents.
As she needed to learn the local language Sister Lucia chose to spend her first months working in the kitchen and then the laundry. As well as helping her learn the local language, these experiences also gave her a deep insight into the strengths and needs of the staff, and a personal knowledge of the older people living there.
From these humble beginnings, Sister Lucia has not only instigated major physical improvements to the residential home, but she has also brought about a radical shift in ethos that has seen respect, dignity, engagement and hope become the pillars of this re-birthed community. She has developed a community where staff thrive on opportunities for professional growth and the freedom to contribute towards improvement, and most importantly the older people they care for know they are loved and that theirs is a life worth living.
Click here to read more about Sister Lucia’s experiences.
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