Why do we work with children affected by HIV and AIDS?
Why do we work with children affected by HIV and AIDS?
HIV and AIDS is devastating individual lives, communities and economies across the world. It is undermining the achievements of past and current development work in many countries and is one of the greatest challenges to achieving the Millennium Development Goals.
HIV and AIDS have in particular, created an orphan crisis that calls for an immediate response on an unprecedented scale. By 2010, more than 25 million children under the age of 15 will have lost one or both parents to AIDS, and most of them wil live in sub-Saharan Africa.
But these figures represent only part of the picture; HIV and AIDS also affects children whose parents are living with HIV and AIDS, non-orphans in households caring for orphans, and children living with AIDS. The total number of orphans and children made vulnerable by HIV and AIDS is currently estimated to be approximately 45 million. To read more, see More Than Words report.
The impact on these children is immense. HIV and AIDS not only threatens their right to life and a family environment, it also undermines a multitude of other rights. As well as suffering the severe psychological distress of losing one or both parents, orphans may also lack food, shelter, clothing and healthcare.
Due to pressure on the household, children may be forced to drop out of school to work or look after sick relatives or younger siblings. On top of this, they are likely to face stigma and discrimination, and may be at risk of abuse or exploitation. This includes land or property grabbing, which deprives them of what little resources they may have been left with.
To read more, visit these websites :
Eldis - Resource Guides - HIV and AIDS, Children and Young People
AIDS Portal - Children affected by HIV and AIDS
Our response
World Vision has made responding to HIV and AIDS a top priority, and our goal is to reduce the impact of HIV and AIDS on children, their families and communities through the enhancement and expansion of programmes and partnerships focused on HIV and AIDS prevention, care and advocacy.
Through community coalitions and faith-based organisations (FBOs), World Vision currently works with 400,000 children affected by HIV and AIDS in 19 African countries.
Community-based responses with families lie at the heart of World Vision’s response. Institutional care is not only very expensive, but children raised in orphanages lose out on family life and a sense of belonging to a distinctive community.
We also recognise that orphans are not the only children who suffer because of HIV and AIDS, and in line with the internationally agreed ‘Framework for the Protection, Care and Support of Orphans and Vulnerable Children Living in a World with HIV and AIDS’, World Vision supports community efforts to identify, monitor, assist, and protect those who are most vulnerable within HIV and AIDS-affected communities.
World Vision’s response to care for orphans and vulnerable children has two main components; facilitating the formation of community care coalitions and supporting home visitors.
World Vision's global HIV and AIDS programme is called the Hope Initiative.
For more on World Vision's work on HIV and AIDS click here.
Challenging injustice
World Vision also lobbies and influences to underpin our work on the front line, to encourage the adoption of public policy and programmes that will minimise the spread of HIV and AIDS, and provide maximum care for those living with, or affected by, HIV and AIDS.
We have four specific global goals:
- Expanding and strengthening care for orphans and vulnerable children
- Reducing gender-based vulnerability to HIV
- Increasing access to a continuum of care and treatment for people living with HIV and AIDS
- Mobilising resources for expanded HIV and AIDS response.