Innovative programme helps AIDS orphans

Children orphaned by HIV/AIDS and their guardians are receiving support from a new project by the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the NGO HelpAge International (HAI). The project in Tete province, which has an HIV prevalence rate of 16.7 percent - higher than the national average of 13 percent - is called "Vivendo Juntos-Kukhala Pabodzi" or Living Together. It is a community-based programme which supports the rising numbers of older people who find themselves bringing up their grandchildren, orphaned by HIV/AIDS. The programme helps identify the children, and provides support to grandparents/guardians, so that they continue going to school by assisting them with their basic needs. Through UNICEF's technical and financial support - about US $194,000 over two years - HAI is implementing the programme in 10 communities of the Changara district, in Tete province. "In 2002, activities were implemented in the first five communities, with a population of approximately 17,511 (32 percent of the 56,600 people in Changara district), which includes 1,226 elderly people," a HAI briefing note said. By the end of 2002, more than 770 elderly people caring for 2,187 orphans were identified in these five communities. A UNICEF spokesman in Mozambique, Michael Klaus, said the programme was "part of our response to the HIV/AIDS and humanitarian crises, which are very much linked. We've tried to identify the most vulnerable groups: child-headed; elderly-headed households with orphans; and families who have to care for chronically sick people". HAI began operating in Mozambique two years after the end of the civil war in 1994 and initially focussed on assisting returnees from the war and vulnerable elderly people. "But more and more they found that, nowadays, the biggest problem the elderly face is that they have to raise their grandchildren, because very often their own children die and leave six to eight grandchildren, which the elderly have to protect," Klaus explained. Through a series of community meetings to identify those in need, more than 2,000 children have been successfully returned to schools. Klaus explained that when parents became sick their children often stayed at home to care for them. The children were often unable to come up with annual school fees of 20,000 meticais per child (about US $1). "They can't, because they have no money. What they can do is get a poverty certificate that will exempt them from paying the school fee, but they usually don't know how to go about doing this," said Klaus. "This is where HelpAge comes in. They identify these orphans in their community meetings - which they hold under a huge baobab tree - and in each case they look into the specifics, and prepare the papers and deliver them to school authorities. This helps the children reintegrate into schools. The project also supports them by providing school materials," he added. The families were also supported through the provision of agricultural inputs (ploughs, ox-carts and seeds), school materials and school uniforms where needed, clothes and personal hygiene articles, and funeral expenses. Training was also provided to help them run small businesses and develop specific skills, such as pottery and basket-making.