$1.5 MILLION GRANT SPURS HIV/AIDS ORPHANS INITIATIVE

Photo: Tammi Mott/CWS

Story: Linda Robbins/CWS

A three-year $1.5 million commitment to Church World Service from St. Marys United Methodist Church Foundation will catalyze an innovative program to assist orphan-headed households in Africa. In announcing the award, Jeff Barker, President of the foundation, located in St. Marys, Georgia, affirmed his organization’s commitment to help orphans and vulnerable children affected by the HIV/AIDS crisis in Africa.

Grant funds will support programs implemented through Church World Service partner organizations in Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda. Those partners include the YWCA in Rwanda, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania, and American Jewish World Service and Trickle Up in Uganda.

Church World Service will support effective interventions impacting health, food security, livelihood, education, youth behavior, and stigma/human rights for thousands of child beneficiaries. In addition to child-headed households, orphans living with sick or elderly caregivers will be key priorities.

“In this partnership, we want to provide self-empowerment to these children... We want to give them assistance that will enable them to survive and take part in their own future,” Mr. Barker has stated. “We see this as a hand-up. The area where the work will be implemented is large enough to make a difference and small enough to be effective.”

Particular emphasis will be placed on education, vocational training, and income generation activities to rapidly increase children’s ability to meet basic needs. Micro-credit programs to underwrite animal husbandry, agriculture, and small industry will be critical components of the programs. The programs will also emphasize behavior change to reduce HIV/AIDS transmission among youth, via values-oriented education, reduction of mythologies, accurate information about prevention/treatment, and interventions that foster self-respect.

More than 11 million children have been orphaned by HIV/AIDS across sub-Saharan Africa, having lost one or both parents to the disease. These numbers are projected to increase since millions more children currently live with sick and dying parents. UNICEF foresees that by 2010 the number of orphans will total 21 million children.

Traditionally, orphaned African children have been cared for by their villages, but this “absorption” process is now strained to the breaking point with the loss of a generation of parents to the pandemic. The consequent suffering of children is overwhelming, as those affected become malnourished and ill, withdraw from school, lose their homes and inheritances, are abused or exploited, and sink beneath a sea of stigma.

“The grant from the St. Marys United Methodist Church Foundation is impressive on two fronts,” says CWS Executive Director John L. McCullough. “First, it provides critical impetus for the Church World Service Africa Initiative, helping to energize a more compassionate response for a changed reality for this continent of more than eight hundred million people. Secondly, it demonstrates the power of the church to be a transforming influence in the world; and affirms that something ‘good’ really is happening in global society.”

Total budget for the three-year Orphans and Vulnerable Children program in Africa is $2.1 million. To add your support, please send contributions to CWS marked "Orphans and Vulnerable Children Program."