It is undoubtedly true to say that the Hangklip Community Care Centre owes Its existence to the vision of Graham Ramsay, an architect by profession and elder of the Lakeside Chapel, Betty’s Bay.
Older residents of the Hangklip area, from Betty’s Bay to Rooiels, recall with great affection and respect, how Graham went from house to house, befriending residents regardless of church affiliation, gaining their confidence and developing a deep awareness of and sympathy for the circumstances and needs of different households.
He encountered many, mostly elderly, local residents who, with no institutional support available in the area, were struggling to put food on the table and were becoming increasingly isolated and lonely as their pensions declined in value and infirmities set in.
In Graham’s mind, something special had to be done to meet residents’ needs — not only their spiritual needs (largely met by local churches), but also nutritional, health, social , emotional and recreational needs — all in a holistic, integrated manner.
Like-minded people from the Lakeside Chapel and other local churches joined Graham in working towards making this vision a reality. It also became the main focus of an interdenominational Christian grouping, the Hangklip Men’s Fellowship, which was established around about the same time.
Various options and approaches were considered. Quick to be ruled out as unaffordable was the building of a central old-age or assisted-living establishment.
One of the first steps towards realising the vision for community care was to obtain space at the Lakeside Chapel for qualified volunteer nurses to operate a local clinic. Another was the establishment of the Hangklip Fynbos Service Centre in 2002 which provided cooked meals at affordable prices to members on three days per week at the Crassula Hall.
Since the Crassula Hall lacked adequate kitchen facilities, individual meal items had to be prepared at the homes of volunteer cooks and transported to the Hall — a situation far from ideal.
In the meanwhile, the Lakeside Chapel, with Graham Ramsay’s architectural input, was busy preparing to undertake a building extension with a view to offering Hangklip Fynbos Centre a permanent home from where it could reach out to the community and which would also allow for integration of current and future community care services.
Hangklip Fynbos was able to start operating from its new home at the Lakeside Chapel on 2 April 2007, after completion of extensions to the Chapel building, which included the kitchen, dining room, new clinic rooms, office and quadrangle. Sadly, Graham Ramsay had already passed away about a year before. The Chapel leadership at the time nevertheless decided to name the dining area adjacent to the kitchen the Ramsay Hall, in recognition of Graham’s monumental contribution.
Hangklip Fynbos, which for logistic and financial reasons had started life as a satellite of the Kleinmond Fynbos Service Centre, had by 2012 become sufficiently independent to break away and register as a non-profit organisation under the name Hangklip Community Care Centre (HCCC). This opened up new funding avenues and enabled unprecedented expansion to take place.
HCCC’s management has, since inception, been drawn from a cross-section of the Hangklip community and included individuals mainly (but not exclusively), from the Lakeside Chapel and the Anglican and Dutch Reformed denominations. To this day HCCC, though independent, retains its strongly Christian character.
It is responsible only to its membership, which is open to every resident in the Hangklip area.
Since becoming independent from Kleinmond Fynbos, and with the help of some 45-50 volunteers, HCCC’s services to the community have expanded greatly and now include providing nutritional services and recreational services and opportunities for participation in social, recreational and cultural events.
The largest challenge that HCCC has accepted is the facilitation of home-based care for community members in dire need of such a service. This now forms part of the centre’s Home-based Assisted Independent Living (HAIL) programme aimed at providing necessary assistance for the elderly and infirm in our community.
Because the dearth of practising carers residing in the Hangklip area has been a major impediment to HAIL, HCCC has now, amongst other things, been assisting affected households by providing courses In the basics of home-based care for household members.