Mr. Banda describes three major challenges he faces in his work as a home-based carevolunteer:

• The lack of adequate supplies the people he cares for need such as basic medicines, food, Bibles and bedding
• The long distances he has to cover to visit people who have asked for his care
• The increasing number of people with AIDS who need care

One of the heartening things that he has seen since starting work as a volunteer is that after he learned the facts about AIDS and began caring for people living with AIDS, his relatives and other people in the community have seen him modeling compassionate care (without stigma and discrimination) and have started to change their own attitudes towards people with AIDS.

He tells the story of visiting a family who had been rejected by the community because one of the family members had AIDS. He would come visit several times a week and as he walked through the village, the people would watch him come and go and ask him questions such as if he was afraid of getting AIDS from this person. He took time to answer their questions without breaking the confidentiality that is part of a volunteer-client relationship. After a while, he was surprised to see community members in the home of the person living with AIDS. As he was walking through the village on the way out, he asked a community member what had changed to make the people feel that it was OK to visit. He was told that they had watched him and talked to him. He seemed to know what he was talking about and he was clearly not afraid so they figured that it would be OK for them to visit as well. Thus relationships were restored within the community and the community was willing to take on the task of caring for one of their own according to their culture.