Why
The AIDS pandemic is ravaging the continent of Africa. The numbers of those afflicted and estimates of the spread of the disease are horrendous - almost beyond comprehension. There is no vaccine; there is only limited treatment. More than two million people die each year. The effects on every aspect of sub-Saharan life are shattering.
Much good work is being done to try to tackle the long-term structural and political issues. But women and children continue to suffer and die. We believe grassroots efforts can help many who currently have no hope.
We know we can't reach vast numbers of people on our own. But we can and do commit ourselves to helping those grassroots groups who try so hard, with so little, to ease the anguish of the dying mothers and to create a hopeful future for the children they leave behind.
In sub-Saharan Africa, AIDS has a woman's face:
In 2007, of the 22.5 million people living with HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa, a staggering 61% were women. More than two-thirds (68%) of all people infected with HIV and more than three-quarters (76%) of all AIDS-related deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa
Women are dying in vastly disproportionate numbers:
They die in the most appalling of circumstances — often stretched out on a foetid mat on a mud floor, writhing in pain, covered in sores and abrasions, with their children looking on. Young women aged 15-24 in sub-Saharan Africa are between two and six times more likely to be HIV-positive than men in the same age bracket.
When mothers die, they leave their children behind, often without any means of support:
UNICEF estimates that by 2010, as many as 15.7 million children will have lost one or both parents to AIDS. There is rarely food enough for one meal a day. There is little money for school fees, books or uniforms.
In a great number of cases, orphaned children end up living with their grandmothers. Some live in what are called ‘sibling households’ or ‘child-headed households,’ in which the eldest child is often a 12 to 14 year-old girl looking after her siblings.The children effectively lose the meaning of childhood. It would seem that there is almost no way out of the trap that AIDS has created.
Grandmothers are the unsung heroes of the pandemic:
Surrounded by poverty, hunger and desolation, grandmothers almost single-handedly care for millions of children orphaned by AIDS, sometimes as many as ten to fifteen in one household.
These magnificently courageous women bury their own children and then look after their orphan grandchildren, calling on astonishing reserves of love and emotional resilience. But they do so with almost no support.
PLWHAs need support:
Associations of people living with HIV and AIDS (PLWHAs) are springing up in all of the countries in which the Foundation intends to work.The membership is invariably small: it takes great courage to openly declare one's status; the stigma and discrimination are appalling. One of the most important objectives for PLWHAs is to educate themselves and share information with the broader community on prevention, treatment, care and the elimination of stigma. For that, they need a place to meet and simple materials to support their work.
Family income is gutted as wage earners die:
Plots of land are left untended. Every penny goes to the care of the sick and the dying. We who have seen the situation at the grassroots know that even a very small amount of money can have a huge impact on the lives and well-being of these women, men and their children.