Help Destitute Moms with AIDS Care for Their Kids

Wednesday July 12  donations of $100 to $1000 will be eligible for a 50% match for as long as matching funds last.

Now, we have a lot of catching up to do! 

Mark was finally able to travel to Cambodia in May , visiting for the first time since February 2020. By coincidence, his last trip to Cambodia coincided with COVID related travel shutdowns across the region which began in late February and early March of 2020. 

During the period when Mark was unable to visit our programs in person and although  facing  some considerable logistical challenges during those three years, our local staff in Cambodia kept things running smoothly despite repeated local government mandated closures and the staff’s own concerns about COVID,    Our staff kept us up to date and informed about developments on the ground and, most important, about the health and welfare of the people served by our programs.

Finally, in May of this year, Mark returned to Phnom Penh where he reunited with our staff and nearly all of our program families including those  who live far outside of Phnom Penh.

As of June 1, 2023, our AIDS Patients Family Support program is supporting 26 adults and 15 children.  Of those 26 adults, 24 are women, five of whom are in their mid seventies or even older.

It’s important to note that, when our program began nearly 25 years ago, AIDS was a virtual death sentence so we never anticipated that some of those early participants in our AIDS Patient Family Support Program (FSP) would still be with us today.  In recent  years we have been able to shrink our program  significantly from supporting as many as 75 women and 125 children at a given time to the numbers we have today. That shrinkage was possible due to the introduction in Cambodia of antiretroviral drug therapies.  The remaining patients in our program are now, for the most part, those whom we judge to be unable to support themselves and their families or, in some cases, unlikely even to survive without our help.

Now I would like to introduce you to our a few of the most senior members of our patient roster, women who have been with us for at least fifteen years and, in at least two cases, since the very earliest years of our program’s existence.

(Due to the stigma which is still attached to AIDS in Cambodia, we must protect the privacy of our patients by not revealing their actual names and not showing their faces.)

Madam A is 75 years old and has been in our program since 2002. Sadly, she is now suffering from serious dementia and requires constant help with even the most basic aspects of daily living. Fortunately, she is able to live with her son (age 39), his wife and their two daughters (ages 7 and 20).  She owns a small house far from the city center on a little patch of land assigned to her by the government when she and many of her neighbors were resettled there because the municipal government had decided to redevelop land under the slum where they had lived in the center of the city.  The small stipend ($110 per month)  which our program provides just barely covers her food expenses each month.

Her son works as a construction laborer earning $12.50 per day when work is available to him.  His wife works in a factory earning about $200 per month and their elder daughter, a university student, has a part time job which pays $150 per month. So, including the food allowance which we provide to her, this woman’s family has a total income of about $600 per month, more than half of which is required just to cover their food expenses.

Madam B, exact age unknown, but estimated at 75+  has  been with us for more than  15 years. She has a  history of hyper-tension. In the last week of May, on Mark’s last day in Phnom Penh, Madam B  suffered a severe stroke and was hospitalized for about one week.

 When she was released from the hospital, the doctors offered no treatment plan and did not even request follow up visit. It is, therefore, our understanding from her family, that they consider her condition to be hopeless. She is now bedridden and stricken with paralysis. Her son (age 37), who lives in a rural province in the south-west of Cambodia, brought her home to live with him and his family. He  works intermittently as a construction laborer and his wife is small scale rice farmer. Because of Madam B's  near total incapacitation, a family member must always be with her, so  the couple trades off, alternating days when one will work and the other will stay at home to care for her. This arrangement  significantly  lowers their income  due to lost wages for each day that the husband does not work.  It is wonderful that her son brought her to live with them, but it is important to keep in mind that for the working poor in Cambodia the intention or desire to support an aging family member and the actual  ability to do so can be separated by  a wide gulf.  The monthly food allowance ($115) along with help covering medical expenses which we provide to Madam B  makes a critical difference in this family’s ability to care for their mother at home.

Madam C  is approximately 75 years old but, like many older Cambodians, she is not sure of her exact age. Madam C  suffers from  low blood pressure and other medical issues which limit her ability to engage in any physical activity.  We came to know Madam C about fifteen years ago through her daughter, who was a single mother suffering from AIDS, struggling to support both her mother and her young daughter.  We provided this family with modest food support and help with the daughter’s education expenses which allowed the family to stay together and the daughter to stay in school.  Madam C’s daughter works six days per week in a garment factory earning about $200 per month and her daughter, Madam C’s granddaughter, is in her final year of university studies and is looking forward to a teaching career after graduation. It is almost certain that, without the modest support which we have provided this family over the years, it would have been impossible for the granddaughter  to remain in school and she would most likely have dropped out to get a job to help support her mother and grandmother.

Madam D is now 83 years old.  She is illiterate and works as a vegetable seller earning just a few dollars per day.  She lives with her granddaughter and grandson. The mother of those two children, Madama D's daughter, was a participant in our program who died from AIDS about 15 years ago. The granddaughter, now age 23, is very kind and hard working but has minimal education.  She works alongside her grandmother every day selling vegetables in a small stand on the side of a street in their neighborhood in Phnom Penh. The grandson, now in his late 20s, has been severely mentally disabled since birth and has the mental capacity of only a small child. He is unable to work at any job and he requires constant close supervision.  There no other relatives in the family, so this particular situation is of great concern to us because, when his grandmother dies, it will be difficult to find anyone other than his sister to take care of this young man. In the meantime, we provide monthly support of $185 to help this family with the expense of food and rent.

We hope that these  deeply personal stories can  offer you insight as to the immense importance of your support. Without your generosity, these people would most likely be homeless and literally fighting to survive.

We hope that you will join with us on July 12 and participate in GlobalGivings Donor Match Day where contributions  of $ 100 ~ $1000 ( per donor /per organization )  are eligible to receive a 50% matching grant.

We are deeply grateful to you for your support!

Barbara & Mark Rosasco

P)lease join us April 3 -7 for GlobalGiving's "Little by Little"  Campaign where donations up to $50 per donor per organization will receive a 50% match.

Since 1999, Kasumisou Foundation has provided care and support to the AIDS afflicted poor with a particular emphasis on supporting single homeless women in and around Phnom Penh,Cambodia's capital city.

The AIDS Patients Family Support Program (FSP), has long been posted on GlobalGiving as"Help Destitute Moms with AIDS Care for Their Kids" ,  a functional name for the program's goals. This program  is a formalized effort to provide homeless and destitute women afflicted by mid-to-late stages of AIDS with basic housing,monthly food support and sponsorship for the school expenses for their primary and secondary school age dependent children.

In the earliest years of our  program, Kasumisou Foundation provided antiretroviral medicines (ARVs, often referred to as the
"AIDS cocktail" ) to some of our AIDS afflicted patients. Due to the eventual availability in Cambodia of free medicines from the UN’s Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, we no longer needed to provide ARVs. We did, however, continue to provide destitute AIDS afflicted women and children with modest housing,food support, school expenses, basic medicines, transportation to and from medical appointments and consistent counseling and encouragement.

As we approach the end of Q1  2023, we are supporting 17 households. Within these households there are 25 adults comprised of  17 women and two husbands, one of whom is physically disabled, three elderly women who are the mothers of
three of our women, three young adult children, two of whom who have very significant  developmental disabilities. In addition to the 25 adults there are 11 minor children.

Program expenses for March  of $2,645  are representative of our typical monthly expenses and  break down  as follows:

• Food support for 17 families:   $1,625.00
• Rent and utilities for ten families**: $430.00
• Other miscellaneous expenses including school fees and transportation to medical appointments:  $35.00 
• Salaries for one part time administrator and one full time field staffer: $555.00

** Seven of our families are housed with relatives and do not, therefore, require rent support from our program. As  some of you may recall, years ago, our program was much larger – operating for many years with as many as 70 to 75 households under our care. However, over the nearly quarter century that we have been doing this work, we have always tried to emphasize the need to move toward self-sufficiency.

Consequently,  over the years,  improved economic conditions in Cambodia provided  more jobs for some of our family members .As their children became educated, grew up and became  able to contribute to the family’s support, we continued to narrow our support to only those families who had few or no other resources  on which they could rely. In the past  3 years we have admitted only two families to the program.

Your generous support over these many years has helped us to provide dignified living conditions to fragile individuals and
families who otherwise might be homeless and living on the streets.

We hope that you will join us April 3 -7 for GlobalGiving's "Little by Little"  Campaign where donations up to $50 per donor per organization will receive a 50% match.

We sincerely appreciate your loyal and generous support.

Barbara & Mark