| The Stephen Lewis Foundation

The AIDS Information and Support Centre

Swaziland’s AIDS Information and Support Centre (TASC) began in 1989 by building the capacity of nurses and traditional healers to best help people infected with HIV/AIDS, as this was considered a “new disease “at the time. In 1993, the organization achieved a breakthrough by forming the first group of people living with HIV/AIDS in Swaziland. Since 1998, TASC has performed rapid HIV-testing, and it initiated a Mobile Outreach Education, Counselling and Testing service which reaches out to all four regions of the country.

Nevertheless, HIV/AIDS has devastated this tiny kingdom. The impact of Swaziland's pandemic has been so severe that life expectancy has dropped to among he lowest in the world. TASC has responded by running positive-living support groups, information on “prevention with positives,” life-skills programmes, public sector training courses, and support to orphans and vulnerable children — particularly those who live with elderly caregivers. The Stephen Lewis Foundation helps TASC with the resources to educate community health workers on HIV treatment, positive living and new approaches to HIV-prevention, as well as provide direct assistance to grandmother-headed households and people living with HIV in six rural communities. Where most needed, elderly people, people living with HIV and vulnerable children are supplied with food-hampers, psychosocial support, medical supplies and toiletries. (Essential medicines are provided to sick clients by a nurse-counsellor.) A small number of orphans are also assisted with school uniforms and related expenses. The SLF also pays for home-based care supplies, some volunteer incentives and three staff members.

Gone Rural boMake

Just about everywhere you travel in Africa, caregivers of orphans and other vulnerable children report that their main priority is to ensure that the children in their care attend and succeed in school. A needs assessment conducted by Gone Rural boMake came to the same conclusion. To that end, with SLF support Gone Rural boMake assists low-income grandmothers in 13 communities by providing the children in their care with the requisite school fees, uniforms, examination costs, and school supplies. (Where government subsidies or partial bursaries can be obtained from other sources, Gone Rural BoMake’s just provides a top-up.) The organization supplements their support with literacy education for adults and life-skills education for the children, using some of the older children as tutors for the adult literacy programme. Most of the children assisted are girls, and more than a third are attending secondary school. To help ensure the project’s success, the SLF also pays for some administrative expenses.

Hands at Work in Africa

Established in 2002, Hands at Work in Africa is regional NGO that provides comprehensive care and support services to orphaned and vulnerable children and their families through an affiliated network of faith-based community organizations in Southern Africa. In Swaziland, their local affiliate spans eight villages and is called Asondle Sive Bomake home-based care.

Although Swaziland’s government has declared that education is free, principals have the discretion to charge supplementary fees. Children must also pay the cost of uniforms, examinations and school materials. For orphaned and vulnerable children being cared for by sick mothers or by elderly and impoverished grandmothers, these expenses pose an insurmountable obstacle. Worst off are children who live in child- and youth-headed households. The SLF helps Asondle Sive Bomake Home-based care by helping these families increase food production through improved gardening techniques and poultry production, providing basic home health care to orphans and their caregivers, and offering educational support to orphans so that they can attend school. Home-based care workers, who are volunteers, are provided with a sewing project so that they can make the school uniforms needed by the children. To provide vulnerable children and grandmothers with physical protection, the project includes some house-repairs and security locks. In addition to paying for project costs, the SLF provides an incentive for the Asondle Sive Bomake coordinator.

Swaziland Action Group Against Abuse (SWAGAA)

SWAGAA was launched in 1990 by volunteers to support and counsel survivors of sexual, physical, emotional and financial abuse in Swaziland. The group seeks to address abuse and its denigrating effects on the survivor, their family and friends. SWAGAA’s programmes in Manzini and nine satellite offices country-wide now include a toll-free counselling line and a Child Abuse Program, expanding the capacity of SWAGAA to respond to the high number of reported abuse cases and demand for services. SWAGAA offers counselling services in rural areas, and runs education, research and advocacy programmes for the public.

Prevention programming includes counselling for couples, children and families, case management, community child protection, male involvement, girls’ empowerment clubs and self-help groups. SLF partners with SWAGAA to address community response to abuse and gender based violence, in addition to supporting SWAGAA’s staff wellness programme and paying for the organization’s fuel costs.