HIV/AIDS

Program update 2009-2010: AIDS in Africa - Helping Orphans and Vulnerable Children

For the past five years RWF has funded HIV prevention and case management services in South Africa, helping save the next generation of young Africans. Thousands of young people have been helped by RWF's support in Partnership with Africare. In 2009 RWF's Jeff Cotter met with Africare representatives to discuss a new direction for our partnership. We will continue to support HIV prevention and care in South Africa now focusing specifically on the needs of orphans and vulnerable children through an innovative program called Injongo Yethu aka Uplifting Those In Need.

Youth participating in community-wide education program

The geographic focus of the program is the Eastern Cape of Africa in the sub-districts of Lukhanji, Nkonkobe and Makana. These districts are semi-arid, largely rural containing large towns with a 60 to 70% unemployment rate. 23.2% of the population of the Eastern Cape is HIV seropositive. AIDS has left thousands of children without parents.

Through this program, each child, according to individual need, will receive a variety of services including: clinical nutrition interventions, food and/or food parcels, shelter interventions, child protection interventions (birth registration identification and inheritance support), general healthcare services such as immunizations, HIV prevention education and related interventions, psychosocial care, general and vocational education, and antiretroviral treatment. RWF's funds are specifically used to fund the program's Service Corp Coordinator's position which overseas 17 Corp volunteers who serve 9678 children!

Through this program it costs about $100 per year to help a child. Please help a child today by making a donation.

Projects 2005 - 2008:

Since 2005, RWF has been partnered with Africare to help prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS in South Africa. Our partnership focuses on saving the next generation of young Africans. We are using the most effective weapon there is against HIV/AIDS -- education. From 2005-2009, RWF funded an HIV peer education and case management project in South Africa. The project educated young people to be HIV/AIDS peer educators. After receiving intensive training in HIV prevention and care the new peer educators returned to their home communities to work with other young people. The full-time peer educators received a stipend ($200 per month), supplies, a bicycle and ongoing support from this program. RWF donated over $40,000 to this project and funded 17 peer educator positions.

About our partner:

Africare helps Africa. Over the course of its 32 years, Africare has become a leader among private, charitable U.S. organizations assisting Africa. It is the oldest and largest African-American organization in the field and Africa is Africare's specialty. Africare's programs address needs principally in areas of food security and agriculture as well as health and HIV/AIDS. Africare also supports water resource development, environmental management, basic education, microenterprise development, governance initiatives and emergency humanitarian aid. Africare now reaches families and communities in 26 countries in every major region of Africa. Africare was created by Africans and Americans, working as partners, and receives its financial support from one of the most diverse donor bases in the charitable world.

GLOBAL HIV/AIDS

Since AIDS first emerged over 20 years ago, 25 million people around the world have died, 5 million of them children. Presently 38.6 million people are infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Every passing year more than 6 million newly infected people are added to that total. That number is expected to increase with each passing year. As the number of people carrying HIV increases the likelihood of more people becoming infected grows -- it's simple mathematics. Over the next few years the death toll is expected to rise dramatically as the virus progresses unabated in millions of those living with HIV.

In developed high-income nations where health care, education and HIV medications are available, these statistics have in fact been decreasing. Massive early intervention campaigns targeting at-risk populations have been successful in substantially reducing transmission rates, although recent information suggests risk behaviors may be increasing in some communities. Effective medication therapies, although not a cure, have also substantially contributed to the reduction of HIV transmission and have improved the quality of life and survival rates of those living with AIDS.

For much of the world it has been a different story. Many countries have not been able to curb HIV transmission rates and in fact many developing low-income nations face ever-increasing infection rates. In sub-Saharan countries the rate of acquiring HIV is higher than ever before. In fact, of the 36.1 million people living with HIV, more than 70 percent live in sub-Saharan Africa. Thus far 17 million Africans have died of AIDS, 3.7 million of them children and an additional 12 million children have been orphaned. On the continent of Africa an estimated 1 in 10 adults is HIV positive; and in some countries the rate jumps to nearly 1 in 4. Although anti-retroviral medications have proved to be highly effective in reducing transmission rates of HIV and have dramatically improved the quality of life for many, these medications, at an average cost of U.S. $10,000, are simply out of reach for most people living with HIV.

The toll for much of Africa has been devastating. Aside from the emotional impact, stigmatization and family tragedy which often accompany HIV infection, AIDS has profoundly impacted the economic, political and cultural structures of many countries. The majority of those infected with HIV are young adults. Traditionally this middle generation has been responsible for the care of the elderly and nurturing of the young along with charting the future course of their nations' development. With disability and death taking large numbers of this essential generation, the stability of entire societies is at risk. Families often lose their breadwinner, children lose their parents, family structures further unravel. Children must often care for their own dying parents and are then left on their own as support traditionally available from the extended family no longer exists. These children are at particular risk for malnutrition, illness, abuse and exploitation. With infrastructures crumbling around them, these children rarely have access to basic educational, social or medical services putting them further at risk to becoming the next generation to succumb to AIDS.