Carol Allen, Australia
Starbright Learning Exchange
What does your organization do?
The program is an exchange program where childcare volunteer workers from Australia are funded and placed in Capetown to work with coordinators and provide programming and training for day care centre staff and families. Its aim is to establish links between Australian and South African centers and develop ongoing sister center relations.
Mara Kumbweza Banda, Malawi
Paradiso House Home Based Care
What does your organization do?
PHHBC is an indigenous, community based non-governmental organization founded by women who had faced stigma in the community because of their HIV+ status. We mobilize the community, train volunteers (most of whom are PLWA), and offer psychosocial counseling, early childhood and nutritional support to families.
How does your organization reduce the stigma that children and families experience as a result of HIV/AIDS?
We mobilize community leaders, engage the community through music, dance, drama, and comedy, and have begun a dialogue with clinical health providers and traditional healers.
What are ages of the children your organization serves?
18 months to 14 years
How many people does your organization serve?
128 PLWA, 70 OVC, 25 children with HIV
Eduardo Gonzalez Campos, Mexico
La Casa de la Sal
What does your organization do?
Our organization provides integral support to children, adolescents and adults who live with HIV/AIDS, as well as to their families. We keep a foster home for orphan children who live with HIV and we provide psychological support and HIV/AIDS-focused counseling to (biological and adoptive) parents of children who live with HIV/AIDS.
How does your organization reduce the stigma that children and families experience as a result of HIV/AIDS?
In addition to reaching out to families affected by HIV/AIDS and working with clinical staff, we have conducted “An Echo of Silent Pain”, a social awareness campaign through the mass media.
How many people does your organization serve?
25 children with HIV in a center, thousands with other programs
Annie Chen, USA
Academy Street Firehouse (AIDS Resource Foundation for Children)
http://www.aidsresource.org/site/PageServer
What does your organization do?
We provide after-school care to HIV-affected children and adolescents with a focus on psychosocial development through academic, cultural and artistic enrichment.
How does your organization reduce the stigma that children and families experience as a result of HIV/AIDS?
A great deal of intentionality is used when designing the program activities to minimize stigma, and team-building, self-esteem building, and community-building are stressed throughout the program.
What are ages of the children your organization serves?
7 – 17
How many people does your organization serve?
55 children and their families each year for after-school activities, but we are in touch with over 175 AIDS-Affected families in Newark.
Moses Chikufenji, Malawi
Friends of Orphans Community Caring Centre
What does your organization do?
We create infrastructure to identify and address the needs of OVCs. Working with village Chiefs, we facilitate the establishment of village committees that are responsible for addressing the needs of OVCs. This includes the creation of Community Based Care Centers to provide early childhood development and education, along with nutritional and psychosocial support, and integrated child mortality interventions. Youth clubs for older children, assistance with school fees and supplies, and economic empowerment for OVC households address the needs of the whole family.
How does your organization reduce the stigma that children and families experience as a result of HIV/AIDS?
We foster open dialogue, include activities in youth clubs. drama and music that destigmatize, and through home-based care programs encourage families to seek out VCT.
What are ages of the children your organization serves?
Birth to 18
How many people does your organization serve?
Actively, 1500 orphans and vulnerable children are currently supported.
Kathy Gau, Swaziland
Vusumnotfo
What does your organization do?
Vusumnotfo, which means “to restart the economy”, is a Swazi Community Based Development Organization. It serves nearly 50,000 people living in the northern Hhohho Region of Swaziland. ECCD Program is aimed at all children. In-service training for preschool teachers; parenting education within community at large (this includes topics specific to abuse and dealing with death within the family); infrastructure development – through preschool committees. We also host an internship program with university students from Finland who spend time at selected preschools. Aim is to a) provide multicultural/minority experience for Finnish students, b) raise profile of rural preschools, and c) raise teaching methods of preschool teachers (indirectly).
How does your organization reduce the stigma that children and families experience as a result of HIV/AIDS?
The whole program does in that it promotes integration of all children into service delivery at all levels. We use the ECCD development milestones as an assessment tool in that achieving these by an appropriate age should be the goal for all children.
Children with special needs are therefore defined as those following behind in relationship to ECCD development milestones. This neutralizes stigma and channels interventions appropriately.
What are ages of the children your organization serves?
Birth to 8
How many people does your organization serve?
5,000 homesteads i.e. families; 40,000 people (average of 8/family); 18 Chiefdoms; 3 Tinkhundla
Pastor Isaac Hoaeb, Namibia
Hope for the Hopeless
What does your organization do?
Our faith-based program delivers early childhood education through the pre-primary school. We also provide nutritional support through the feeding scheme, and our community garden. Our after school program provides spiritual, social, physical and school work activities.
How does your organization reduce the stigma that children and families experience as a result of HIV/AIDS?
By applying REPSSI’s Journey of Life, counseling and advocacy
What are ages of the children your organization serves?
3 to 12 years
How many people does your organization serve?
230
Noreen Huni, RSA (Zambia, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, Angola, Mozambique, Lesotho, Swaziland, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania)
Regional Psychosocial Support Initiative (REPSSI)
www.repssi.org
What does your organization do?
REPSSI is a capacity building and knowledge management organization on psychosocial care and support for children affected by HIV/AIDS. We develop and research models of psychosocial support and implement them working through our grassroots partners in 13 countries via training, mentoring, coaching and follow-ups. REPSSI’s technical assistance promotes the mainstreaming of psychosocial care and support in to programs that are already responding to HIV/AIDS affected children, such as early childhood development programs.
How does your organization reduce the stigma that children and families experience as a result of HIV/AIDS?
We mobilize communities to care and support the orphaned and other vulnerable children, with a special focus on promoting the children’s psychosocial wellbeing.
What are ages of the children your organization serves?
Birth to 18 though various program activities by our grassroots partners.
How many people does your organization serve?
We are currently reaching 500,000 children and the target is 5 million.
Shamsi Kazimbaya, Rwanda
Society for Women and AIDS in Africa (SWAA) – Rwanda
What does your organization do?
We are a branch of SWAA International and our strategy is a family/community approach. Our services to orphans and vulnerable children – a minimum package as defined by national policy, include school fees, uniforms, school materials, medical insurance, transportation fees, psychosocial support, food support, legal rights support, shelters, and training in life skills.
How does your organization reduce the stigma that children and families experience as a result of HIV/AIDS?
Outreach programs allow dialogue and sharing among family members. Providing the minimum package of services to OVCs reduces the stigma because it makes them feel like other children.
What are ages of the children your organization serves?
Birth to 18
How many people does your organization serve?
13, 496 individuals; 1216 OVCs
Stephanie Kilroe, South Africa
Etafeni Day Care Centre
www.etafenitrust.org
What does your organization do?
Our non-profit organization provides preschool and after school care for HIV/AIDS. Additionally, we run an Income Generation program for HIV+ parents and grandparents of small children. We have a food garden and nutrition program as well. Social grants for AIDS-vulnerable families are accessed by our social worker, and we have 18 Community Care workers who support parents on ARVs. Our counselors and community care workers refer children and their caregivers in to our program.
The Etafeni Day Care Centre is located in the middle of a very poor part of Nyanga (72% unemployment, 30% HIV infection) and clients have easy access to the facility. The Centre was built by previously unskilled and unemployed men and women, the parents of small children.
How does your organization reduce the stigma that children and families experience as a result of HIV/AIDS?
Our Centre is lovely: white-washed and rooms full of light with lawns and trees speaks to the dignity and value of our clients. AIDS-affected children now have a better preschool and better playground. They aren’t seen as outcastes. Our clients get well, walk tall and look good. They earn money and make lovely things. They are open about their status. All this creates a new dynamic.
What are ages of the children your organization serves?
Birth to 18 at the Centre; 3 to 6 in our preschool
How many people does your organization serve?
Nearly 200 families
Yewoinshet Masresha, Ethiopia
Hope for Children Ethiopia
What does your organization do?
We have a child sponsorship program, kindergarten, group homes, memory boxes for the children, formal education support; home based hospice care (including medical) and grief and other counseling, and income generation activities for women, as well as training of volunteers.
How does your organization reduce the stigma that children and families experience as a result of HIV/AIDS?
Our scouts program gives the children, some of whom are HIV+, a chance to interact with many other children and schools; peer education in neighborhoods through traditional coffee ceremonies; puppet shows and photography exhibition.
What are ages of the children your organization serves?
Birth to 18
How many people does your organization serve?
We are supporting 664 children living in 372 house holds. And 1080 students are supported with only school fee and school materials.
Doe Nair, India
Women Action Group…CHELSEA (Children, Health, Education, Ladies, Senior, Environment, Awareness)
What does your organization do?
Provision of home-based care for OVC and PLHA including palliative care, treatment adherence counseling, management of OI and referral for ART and clinical care; community mobilization through trained peer education and community health volunteers, provision of care and support services to OVC such as education, nutrition, psychosocial and life skills education; and training of other local organization on home-based care for OVC.
How does your organization reduce the stigma that children and families experience as a result of HIV/AIDS?
We use several strategies: extensive community awareness and dialogue through local media events, involving adolescents and women as volunteers, school sensitization programs and formation of a community-level committee with representation of local stakeholders and community influences.
What are ages of the children your organization serves?
Birth to 18
How many people does your organization serve?
350 OVC, 115 PLHA in 168 families
Noelina Namukisa, Uganda
Meeting Point Kampala Kyamusa Obwongo
What does your organization do?
We provide home-based care for people living with HIV/AIDS, vocational training for orphans and vulnerable children, formal education for orphans and vulnerable children; fostering of AIDS orphaned children; medical care to people living with HIV/AIDS; sustainable livelihood activities for people living and affected by HIV/AIDs; HIV/AIDS education using music, dance, and drama.
How does your organization reduce the stigma that children and families experience as a result of HIV/AIDS?
We educate, using music, dance and drama
What are ages of the children your organization serves?
4 to 15
How many people does your organization serve?
300 individuals
Kathleen Okatcha, Kenya
Kenya Orphans Rural Development Program (KORDP)
www.kordp.org
What does your organization do?
Our national non-governmental organization uses the community based care (CBC) approach, the Early Childhood Day Care Center (ECDCC) model based on community volunteerism to help communities rebuild the capacity to care for the children. We facilitate 47 ECDCC Institutional Volunteer Committees to support 5,200 OVCs at village sites where children receive medical care, meals, play, emotional support and basic learning skills for transition to formal school. To strengthen the care giving systems for needy families and the ECDCC institutions, food security and income generation initiatives are implemented on family and institutional levels.
How does your organization reduce the stigma that children and families experience as a result of HIV/AIDS?
Information, Education, Communication(IEC) strategy for Psycho-Social Support (PSS) knocks on the closed doors in people’s lives to revive the hitherto lost traditional practices of care by the extended family that have been weakened by the HIV/AIDS scourge, and to rebuild the community spirit. Also, the IEC strategies for HIV/AIDS prevention – once communities know the facts about HIV/AIDS infection and prevention, they start to appreciate and show willingness to support those who are affected and infected in their midst.
What are ages of the children your organization serves?
2 to 8 years
How many people does your organization serve?
6,200 orphans and vulnerable children; approximately 5,200 family caregivers- surviving ailing parents, older siblings, grandparents, and very poor families; hundreds of youth, PLWH/A and hundreds of thousands of indirect beneficiaries trained in HIV/AIDS prevention and advocacy.
Chung To, Hong Kong
Chi Heng Foundation
What does your organization do?
Despite politically sensitive considerations, the Chi Heng Foundation supports a systematic and sustainable program which currently sponsors the education and care for over 4,000 children whose parents have died of or are dying of AIDS in four provinces in Central China.
How does your organization reduce the stigma that children and families experience as a result of HIV/AIDS?
Utilizing innovative and pragmatic approaches, Chi Heng has excelled in education and care for children orphaned by AIDS and prevention of AIDS among vulnerable groups.
How many people does your organization serve?
Over 4,000 children
Karen Vance-Wallace
The Teresa Group, Toronto, Canada
What does your organization do?
The Teresa Group is a registered non governmental organization providing a wide range of practical assistance options and psycho-social support services to children and their families affected by HIV and AIDS. We work with a team of highly trained professional staff and volunteers to carry out our work.
How does your organization reduce the stigma that children and families experience as a result of HIV/AIDS?
We provide education and outreach to variety of community organizations, hospitals, schools, corporations and foundations about the impact of HIV and AIDS on the lives of children and families. Several publications written by children affected by HIV have also printed and widely distributed. In addition to our ongoing local efforts, we have organized a national conference and international symposium on children and AIDS in an effort to raise public awareness and media attention about this complex issue.
What are ages of the children your organization serves?
Prenatal to 17 years
How many people does your organization serve?
We provide services to approximately 350 families and 670 children infected and affected by HIV and AIDS.