It's not only people with HIV that are affected by the AIDS epidemic. Kate Taylor tells us about the work of the Door of Hope in South Africa which helps give children who've lost their parents a chance
Africa is one of the areas worst hit by HIV and AIDS. We hear about so many stories in the press and on the news, but what is it really like being in a country overrun with the virus? And who is affected the most, people with the virus or those they leave behind? You don't have to be infected to be affected.
By 2004 there will be 1.8 million orphans in South Africa alone due to HIV and AIDS. The South African government recently put a moratorium on the registration of children's homes. Its widely supported belief is that children who are orphaned or who are in need of care should be placed in individual family homes instead of institutions. Where are they going to find families to take in all these children, particularly as adoption is taboo in many African cultures?
Children are orphaned when both parents contract and die of AIDS, and babies are being born with HIV or even full blown AIDS. Those who receive immediate medical attention have a chance at life. Many babies are not born in hospitals but at home or on the streets, where medical attention is just a dream. At birth, the mother's antibodies are in the baby's blood. At just a few days old the baby's blood can be tested to identify its antibodies. If the baby at this point is positive for HIV antibodies and under 72 hours old, a drug called nevirapine can be given, which will, nine times out of 10, stop the baby becoming HIV positive in the long term. Tragically, the government has severely restricted access to this drug, which means many are not given this opportunity. Once the baby is 6 weeks old his or her blood is tested again to identify if the baby has contracted HIV. Studies have proved that those first six weeks of the baby's life can be crucial, and if the correct diet, vitamins, love, and attention are given to the baby, the chances of the baby becoming HIV negative are high.
In Johannesburg, 40-50 babies are abandoned every month--thrown out of windows, left in parks, flushed down toilets, and left in rubbish bins. The Door of Hope Children's Mission is a charity that was initially set up to meet the desperate need for care for abandoned babies in the city. Door of Hope is a home that takes babies off the streets and provides a loving, healthy environment to grow up in. The home is transitional; babies are put up for adoption as soon as they are ready. The Door of Hope's baby houses can take up to 24 babies at one time and in the past two and a half years has rescued over 130 babies, many of whom are now with permanent families.
The need is not just restricted to Johannesburg. We are helping to set up projects in many rural areas across South Africa. The focus is not to remove children from their culture and their familiar environment but to develop and build homes for them to be able to remain with their tribal people. The projects do this in many ways. We look for people in the township who will take the children into their homes, and help them access a foster care grant to assist with the financial burden. We help build on to the township more modern homes for the children to grow up in. In the town, we help with buying property which will be a home for potential adoptive children and also a second home for terminally ill children with AIDS; these are called hope homes. As well as this, we provide advice from social workers, counsellors, and doctors and help set up food and clothing distribution centres.
The pilot project in Winterton has already identified nine families where the husband has died, leaving the wife with the children. The chance of the wife being infected and dying relatively quickly is high. What will then happen to the children? They may or may not be infected. One grandmother was caring for 12 children. Not her children--her children have died of AIDS--but her grandchildren. She is an elderly woman and is sick.
The community of hope projects help local communities to come alongside people from the township. Before this grandmother dies they will find out what she wants them to do with her grandchildren. The options are long term foster care in a hope home or possibly even adoption for those young enough. Instead of leaving these children to become head of households and lose their childhood, Door of Hope will provide assistance for as many children as possible. Children affected or infected by HIV and AIDS will have a chance at life.
AIDS is a part of daily life and a definite reality in South Africa. Although AIDS is a killer it can also be completely managed so that a person can lead a normal lifestyle and have normal life expectancy. In Africa, HIV is seen as a death sentence, and people literally sit around waiting to die. Many don't know that they have it or are in denial. Poverty is high, health care is poor, so people have no real prospects at all.
Education is essential in stopping the virus; AIDS is completely preventable, yet the pandemic is getting larger. The word is spreading, but AIDS is spreading faster.
