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How You Can Help - Ease The Burden |
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Sponsorship eases burden of HIV/AIDS
While AIDS affects populations around the world, its impact is most severe in Africa. In 10 years, average life expectancy on the continent will be 45. Of the 13 million children orphaned by AIDS, 10 million are in Sub-Saharan Africa and the number is increasing rapidly.
CFCA projects in Africa help families deal with the consequences of HIV/AIDS in a number of ways, including providing nutrition, medication for opportunistic infections and educational assistance for AIDS patients, and housing and educational assistance for AIDS orphans. Amidst the grim statistics, stories of hope emerge.
Statistics cited are from the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Donate to CFCA’s HIV/AIDS Fund. One-hundred percent of your contribution goes to support our projects in their efforts to assist CFCA families impacted by this disease. Editor's note: Antiretroviral drugs are very expensive and sponsorship assistance cannot begin to cover the cost. CFCA project staff members refer sponsored friends with AIDS to charitable organizations that supply them. Sponsorship helps pay for medication to treat the numerous opportunistic infections that affect AIDS patients. It also provides nutritious food, clothing and secure housing which contribute to their well-being. Read more about CFCA sponsorship and support of those affected by HIV/AIDS
Other links for more information about HIV/AIDS:
When the Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, project team discovered Emmanuel (Emma for short) in early 2005, he weighed 28 pounds and appeared to be 3- or 4-years-old. His head was covered with open sores and his neck was so swollen he couldn’t swallow his own saliva. He had never talked. Emma was 15.
The project team immediately brought Emma to the hospital for treatment. He was diagnosed with AIDS and placed on antiretroviral drugs obtained from a government agency.
Emma’s older sister, Neema, brought Emma to the project center each day so staff could administer his medication, feed him, do his personal hygiene and provide tutoring. Today, Emma is a changed person.
“Emma has gained weight, is talking and is very active around the project squirting water and playing jokes,” said Mary Dawn Reavey, Dar es Salaam project coordinator and a nurse practitioner certified in pediatric and family care.
When Mary Anne Cullen asked to sponsor a child most in need in May of 2005, she was presented with Emma. Mary Anne sponsors 20 children through CFCA. She has nine children of her own. One has Asperger’s Syndrome, a developmental disorder related to autism and characterized by difficulties in social and communication skills.
“We have been so blessed because my youngest child’s special needs are taken care of by insurance and schooling,” said Mary Anne. “I feel good about being able to help Emma. His quality of life has improved dramatically.”
Sponsorship benefits have improved Emma’s health and made it possible for him to go to school. Emma is developmentally delayed and functions at a 7- or 8-year-old level.
“With sponsorship, Emma is valued and able to mix with other children,” said Neema. “Before he always believed he was a lowly person and beneath everyone. Now he has hope.”
Mary Raple, a CFCA mission awareness trip coordinator, learned the reality of AIDS in Africa on a recent trip to Uganda and Kenya. She was struck by the stoicism in the voice of one young woman who lost her parents and several siblings to the disease.
“This is how it is in Uganda,” said Theresa (Teddy), a 22-year-old woman who teaches weaving to sponsored teenagers at CFCA’s Masaka project. The overwhelming loss has not dampened Teddy’s indomitable spirit.
Sponsorship enabled Teddy to obtain a degree in industrial fine arts. She studied wood carving, pottery, cloth making and weaving. After graduating, Teddy helped the Masaka project obtain a CFCA grant to start a weaving project. Teddy teaches sponsored teenagers to weave kikois (pieces of fabric used as shawls), bed covers and curtains that are sold to the local market.
“She is beautiful, competent and delightful,” said Mary. “She really embodies how sponsorship can change a child’s life. She grew into a multi-talented, confident young woman.”
Clem Reiter, Teddy’s sponsor, agrees. He and his wife are pleased to see how Teddy has blossomed in the 12 years they have sponsored her.
“Teddy was a gangly girl at first,” said Clem. “She writes good letters and her English has improved. We are real proud of her.” Grandparents become caregivers
AIDS orphans, whether or not they are infected with HIV, are vulnerable to disease and neglect if no surviving family members are able and willing to care for them.
Elizabeth, 67, did not anticipate caring for children in her old age but when her son and daughter-in-law died of AIDS, she had no choice but to take in their three children, Caroline, Agata and Sharon. Elizabeth has cared for her granddaughters for three years. She has diabetes. Sponsorship helps pay for her medicine. She and her granddaughters are sponsored through the Timau project in Kenya.
Sharon is HIV-positive and takes antiretroviral drugs but at age 8, she doesn’t understand much about AIDS.
“Sponsorship pays for Sharon to be in an AIDS hostel where there is a doctor and the children can go to school,” said Elizabeth. “When she comes home for the holidays, I am able to take care of her with the food CFCA provides.”
Sponsorship also pays for Caroline, 19, to attend sewing school and take government certified exams, which can be very expensive. At the end of the course, she will receive a sewing machine so she can start her own business.
Agata, 16, attends high school and wants to be a nurse. Sponsorship pays for her high school tuition fees.
“Without the girls being sponsored, I could never put them through school,” said Elizabeth. “It’s not easy having reached my age to still have children to care for. I haven’t much energy and I tire easily. Teenagers can be very resistant to someone who is not their parent telling them what to do. Sponsorship gives them a chance for the future.”
CFCA projects help sponsored members cope with impact of HIV/AIDS HIV/AIDS touches hundreds of CFCA sponsored members in different ways. Scarce family resources are stretched even further to pay for medical treatment. Children and youth are rejected from school because of their illness. Aging members are left to care for grandchildren and great-grandchildren orphaned by the disease. The impact can be overwhelming.
“AIDS is still very much stigmatized in most places in Africa,” said Mary Dawn Reavey, project coordinator for Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and a nurse practitioner certified in pediatric and family care. “Because of the stigma, mothers wait until the children are extremely sick before they bring them to the Dar es Salaam clinic.”
CFCA sponsorship and donations to CFCA’s HIV/AIDS Fund help to fund programs specifically designed by projects to help sponsored members cope with HIV/AIDS.
The Busunju project in Uganda focuses on testing and counseling for sponsored members. Convincing members to get tested is not easy because the testing centers may be far away and members fear learning the results.
Once a person overcomes the obstacles to testing, he or she can focus on dealing with the results, whether negative or positive.
"When people find out they are HIV-negative, they become very determined to stay negative," says Mary Hinde, project coordinator for Owila, Kenya. In those cases, the person is referred to an AIDS clinic for counseling on how to avoid contracting AIDS.
If a person is found to be HIV-positive, sponsorship may help provide medicines to treat opportunistic infections, supplemental nutrition and bus fare for clinic visits. Sponsorship also helps offset the cost of monitoring for anemia and other side effects.
In Timau, Kenya, 171 adults and children living with AIDS receive assistance through the project's HIV/AIDS program. The project located a doctor who treats patients with antiretroviral drugs and provides medications for opportunistic infections for a reasonable price.
The Timau project team decided to focus on a small number of patients who receive this therapy, would disclose their status and were open to treatment. The goal is to prolong their lives so they can raise their children. These patients are serving as positive role models for others living with HIV/AIDS. The Dar es Salaam project also focuses on administering antiretroviral (ARV) drugs to parents so they can care for their children. ARV drugs are very expensive and in most cases, sponsorship assistance cannot begin to cover the cost. Mary Dawn said the wholesale cost of ARV drugs in Tanzania is $21 a month for adults and $100 a month for children.
The project helps refer patients to one of many agencies that offer assistance with ARV’s. ARV clinics in Tanzania are usually funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development or the local government.
AIDS treatment regimen requires diligence and discipline
Expensive drugs, excellent nutrition and daily visits to a clinic can be a lot to require from anyone suffering from disease. But for AIDS patients in developing countries, the treatment regimen is nearly impossible to follow without some kind of financial and moral support.
At the Dar es Salaam project in Tanzania, coordinator Mary Dawn Reavey, a nurse practitioner certified in pediatric and family care, has developed a methodical, highly-disciplined regimen that supports the orphans and parents who visit the AIDS clinic there. Before the patient can start ARV therapy, the project helps improve his or her nutritional state.
“It is important for patients on ARV therapy to have good nutrition to enhance the effectiveness of the drugs,” said Mary Dawn.
Sponsored members with HIV/AIDS regularly receive a batch of “Supermix Uji,” a high-protein cereal the consistency of Cream of Wheat that contains nuts, beans and seven grains, including millet and maize. Sponsorship helps make this possible.
Mary Dawn sets up an assembly line to administer medication and supplements to the 12 children, ranging from 18 months to 16 years, at the clinic. Children too young to take pills may have to drink nine cups of medicine. Older children take one tablet of medicine and five supplements twice a day.
Ensuring the children receive education can be challenging. Children with AIDS are sometimes ostracized because of a lack of understanding about the disease. Or, sick children miss so much school that they have to drop out. The Dar es Salaam project offers a tutoring program that is available to HIV-infected children. Children who have been held back because of their illness feel more comfortable with children of varying ages. “These children are the future of Africa,” said Mary Dawn. “If we treat them with love and respect, they can do wonderful things.”
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