A person with AIDS is a person just like you

A person with AIDS is a person just like you | "We've learnt to face anything" | In the circle of drought, poverty and AIDS | Hunger in Southern Africa is a reality | SOS Social Centre Ennerdale reaches out to the youth | Sindi's Story: Coming Face-to-Face with the Human Tragedy of AIDS | "Knowing your status is the first step to planning your future" | HIV/AIDS Programme at the SOS HG Adult Training Centre | "Will you take care of my children?"

Acting against AIDS Approximately 40 million people are infected with HIV today. The poorest countries in the world are most seriously affected by the disease. Almost 75% of the sufferers live in Africa south of the Sahara. Due to the extent of the disease and the rapid increase in the number of children who are orphaned on account of AIDS, SOS Children's Villages work is faced with new challenges. HIV/AIDS: one of the major threats of our time In Africa, it is traditional for the extended family to take care of children who have lost their parents. The crisis has, however, reached such a dimension that family networks can no longer cope: more than 90% of the 13 million AIDS orphans in the world live on the African continent; in some countries, they account for 9% of the total population. South of the Sahara in Africa, 2.4 million children under the age of fifteen are HIV-positive. Many of them contracted the disease during pregnancy, at birth or through their mothers' milk. The number of families whose 'heads' are grandparents or children is on the increase. These children face enormous problems: the slow death of their parents has brought about emotional and psychological trauma. The community frequently responds with social exclusion. Often the community refuses to allow them to attend school or give them medical care. Their vulnerability to abuse, exploitation, sickness and poverty is far greater than that of children living with their parents. SOS Children's Villages in southern Africa have adapted to the needs of children infected with HIV and suffering from AIDS. They offer psychosocial accompaniment, HIV tests and mobile home nursing services. SOS Children's Villages: protecting the most vulnerable Existing SOS Children's Villages and the concept of family-based care are the basis of initiatives to help local communities. Our community outreach programmes help the families concerned - above all the children who have lost their parents through AIDS and who are now themselves the heads of families or who are cared for by their grandparents, brothers and sisters. Our pilot projects are geared towards providing continuous and sustained accompaniment to the local inhabitants and towards combating poverty and exclusion. Social workers and volunteers trained by SOS Children's Villages regularly visit families affected by AIDS and help them solve problems with accommodation, clothing, cost of living, school fees, etc. Priority is given to the children's needs; their independence is promoted through measures to secure income. SOS Children's Village mothers and educational co-workers lend a helping hand themselves, for example in Swaziland where domestic help is given to neighbouring families and school children are given assistance with their homework. These local programmes, which are mostly carried out in co-operation with other NGOs, serve to help hundreds of children affected by the disease. Main focus Southern Africa In South Africa, Zimbabwe, Malawi and Swaziland, AIDS education programmes are conducted at SOS Social Centres which provide advisory services, inform of preventive measures and are oriented towards specific target groups. The programmes offer information, education and rooms for dialogue for local NGOs, foster families, volunteers and inhabitants. Each of the SOS Social Centres reaches out to and helps hundreds to thousands of people. The work done by the centres focuses on mobilising resources and on consolidating local communities so that the needs of children affected by HIV/AIDS can be met in a concerted effort. The SOS Medical Centre in Lilongwe, Malawi, offers HIV tests, medication to prevent the transmission of the illness from mother to child, special care for AIDS sufferers and advisory services. It holds workshops to inform the people living in the surrounding residential areas of the disease and develops curricula and informative booklets. SOS Kindergartens and SOS Schools do their share by offering scholarships to AIDS orphans. Currently, measures are being taken to extend the scope of these projects to Kenya, Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, South Africa and Swaziland. In the future, SOS Children's Villages will play a greater role in providing help to families affected by HIV/AIDS and in informing the inhabitants of the disease. In this context, great importance is attached to our participation in national AIDS programmes and to our co-operation with local NGOs, ministries and UN agencies. Links: "AIDS epidemic update", UNAIDS, December 2001 "The State of the World's Children 2001", UNICEF Official coverage of the Conference