More orphans as AIDS takes its toll on communities

Ill health, financial worries and the exertion of looking after two orphaned grandchildren have obviously taken their toll on Clementina Opondo. Surviving on antiretroviral drugs after contracting HIV from her now-deceased husband, she looks much older than her 54 years. Opondo, who lives in Kanyamkago location in Migori district of Nyanza Province in western Kenya, said her husband died of AIDS in 1994. The disease claimed the life of her son in 1997. Her daughter-in-law succumbed in 2002, living behind a son and a daughter, now aged 13 and nine years respectively. "My health is poor. I have no strength to till the land to produce sufficient food. I am constantly worried about the future of my grandchildren," admitted Opondo, one in a growing number of grandparents who have had the responsibility of bringing up their grandchildren thrust upon them as HIV/AIDS erases a generation of younger Kenyans. The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) estimated at the end of 2003 that some 1.2 million Kenyans, including 100,000 children, were living with HIV/AIDS. The virus is responsible for an estimated 650,000 orphans in the country. According to a 2003 demographic and health survey carried out by the Kenyan government, 11 percent of the country's children under age 15 have lost one or both parents to the disease. Nyanza Province, Kenya's ground zero in terms of HIV/AIDS infection, has the highest concentration of orphans in the country, with almost one in five [19 percent] children under the age of 15 having lost one or both parents. Grassroots support Opondo has found some support in Suka Youth Group, 14 young people who have formed a community-based organisation (CBO) to address the needs of children orphaned by AIDS in Kanyamkago. They also provide home-based care to those who are weakened by the disease. "We try to provide food, school uniforms and books to orphans living with their guardians. There are so many needy cases and we have very limited resources," said 26-year-old George Okello, one of the group's members. Suka earns most of its income through the sale of vegetables and sugar cane grown on leased farms. It currently assists 60 orphans and provides home-based care to eight AIDS patients. Widowed and occasionally sick, Pamela Dola, 32, has become the sole breadwinner for three of her own children and five others who were orphaned when her brother-in-law and his wife died of AIDS. She believes her husband became infected when he "inherited" his brother's widow. Her husband, in turn, infected her. "Sometimes I am unable to provide food to the children. When they ask, I am emotionally devastated because I feel like I have failed in my responsibility as a parent," said Dola, who sells fish and vegetables in a desperate struggle to single-handedly provide for eight children, ranging from age four to age 15. "Some [children] are now in need of school uniforms, but I have no money. I think of my [late] husband," said Dola, struggling to maintain her composure. Dola's story echoes throughout the villages of Nyanza, where one hears similar accounts of single mothers and fathers, many of them sick, who are struggling to raise their own or their relatives' children in the wake of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Although CBOs like Suka can ameliorate some the problems facing orphans, lack of financial support stifles many grassroots initiatives. "Our main problem is funding," said Olga Akinyi, a member of Suka Youth Group. "We would like to start vocational training for the orphans or pay for secondary education for some of them." Last year, the group received some money from the National AIDS Control Council, but it was uncertain if there would be any benefactors this year. "We need sustainable support to help the orphans and give home-based care to those who are sick, or they will die of poverty-related causes," said Akinyi. Community AIDS International, a larger NGO that receives funding from the US Agency for International Development and the Ford Foundation, helped guardians care for 529 orphans through the provision of small loans, which were used to start income-generating projects in Bondo district. Grace Ayieko, a member of the organisation, said that the 529 orphans receiving help represented just 4 percent of all orphaned children in the district. [HIV/AIDS a major health issue in western region]