Aids Africa Children: HIV / AIDS Orphans
We are all becoming more and more aware of the scale of human suffering caused by HIV / AIDS in Africa, especially for the children who are orphaned and often lose siblings to AIDS.
SOS Children has grassroots projects in most countries in Africa (see Africa Charity projects ) working at a simple level giving practical support to children. Last year, thanks to people like you, SOS Children supported 44,000 AIDS Orphans in their old family home in 44 countries through three visits a week with practical help, food, medicine and love. Children are saved one by one and every contribution or small regular donation helps us to help another child.
However, there is so much more to do…
Claudine's story
Claudine is 17 years old and from Byumba in Rwanda. Her father died during the 1994 genocide and the mother died of AIDS in 2003. Claudine is the head of her family and is the sole carer of her two small sisters, Clementine and Esther. The entire family has been assisted by the SOS Family Strengthening Programme since 2004.
Claudine’s sister Esther, 10, is HIV-positive. Claudine says: "I was wondering after our mother's death how I was going to provide Esther with the medicines she needed every day, as we were alone without support. But, things were easier with the help of the Family Strengthening Programme. I am very happy when I see her healthy, and I hope that this will be the same every day."
The SOS Family Strengthening Programme assists Esther not only with medicines, but also the stationary and uniform she needs for school, food, clothes and psychological support. There is a high level of stigma around HIV / AIDS in Rwanda and a low level of support for those infected with the virus. It is common to see people losing their jobs because of the illness, others being abandoned by their families, as well as children who have difficulties to follow normal schooling because they are HIV positive. SOS Children works hard to fight against this kind of discrimination.
In 2007, 160,000 children were orphaned due to AIDS in Rwanda. The country has one of the world's largest proportions of child-headed households, with an estimated 101,000 children living in 42,000 such households. SOS Children's Villages Rwanda works closely with the government and people living with HIV / AIDS in the fight against the disease and de-stigmatisation among people and helps many more children like Claudine.
AIDS in Africa background
There is an epidemic of AIDS engulfing much of Africa, especially sub-Saharan Africa. In some African countries it is estimated that 40% of the working-age population has contracted HIV, with younger and more successful workers being most likely to be affected. However, this is never uniform across a population; 40% of a whole African country will mean there are areas where virtually everyone has contracted HIV / AIDS. The worst affected countries include Swaziland, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Lesotho. In places like these, village after village has no young adults left. The scale of the problem is overwhelming.
It is hard to know how to approach such a situation. SOS Children has developed a strategy for AIDS orphans in Afirca where we do not move children from their familiar background but strengthen their community to look after them. SOS has projects helping more than 44,000 African children orphaned by AIDS in 44 African countries, and is growing as fast as you allow us to. We are continually improving our approach with the exchange of experience and best practice. Details of more established projects, such as all our Children's Villages in Africa can be found on our Africa Pages. More about our AIDS orphan programmes are divided into Central and East Africa AIDS Orphan projects and Southern Africa AIDS orphan projects.
Inevitably many of those affected are the parents of young children. When parents start to develop full-blown AIDS, they cannot work and need to be looked after. But the situation is so bad that in parts of Africa no adults are able to help. The children not only have the distress of seeing their parents become weaker and weaker but they no longer have anyone providing for them and often have to try to help care for their parents. It is not unusual to find very young children or some of their brothers and sisters with AIDS (about half of all children of HIV-affected African mothers end up with AIDS themselves), orphaned and caring for toddlers. It is estimated that 90% of the world’s HIV-infected children live in Africa, and more than half a million die of AIDS each year.
AIDS in Africa: the way forward?
So is this a hopeless situation? No, it is tragic but not hopeless. At present, for those infected with HIV / AIDS all we can try to ensure is that they are loved and cared for as they grow weaker. For the many young children in Africa who do not have HIV / AIDS, we can make a huge difference. The difference between love and abandonment, between a group of young children scavenging for scraps and a small child-led family with adequate nourishment and even the chance of school.
You can read SOS Children’s latest policy on AIDS and meetings of our AIDS best practice workshop as more background.
AIDS: Only affecting Africa?
It is true that the most children orphaned and affected by AIDS live in Sub-Saharan Africa. However, as the infection spreads, the number of children who are living with HIV-infected parents and who have lost parents to AIDS is beginning to grow in other regions, including Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe.
For example, Russia has the fastest growing HIV rates in the world, with 100 new infections every day. Russia accounts for around two-thirds of the cases in the Eastern Europe and Central Asia region. There were an estimated 940,000 people living with HIV at the end of 2005 in Russia - up from 760,000 in 2003 - and this figure looks set to increase even further. Some 20 babies are born every day to HIV-positive women, with two of those, on average, abandoned by their mothers. Read here about SOS Children projects in Russia
Read about World AIDS Day 2008 01 December 2008