Help Destitute Moms with AIDS Care for Their Kids

Update on AIDS Patient Family Support Program: What’s new in 2014

As we mentioned in previous updates , we have been working for more than one year to reduce our patient family load significantly. Our reasons were two fold: not only were we aware that some families’ living situations allowed for a decrease in assistance, freeing scarce resources for other participants, but also a reaction to the continuation of serious escalation in costs in our program of necessities . Off setting reduced numbers of patient families has been the significant upward trend of housing and food costs. Rents are going up with increases of 25% to 50% not uncommon for the extremely modest single room and tiny flats we provide. Food prices also continue to rise , with an approximate average increase in costs of 25% to 30% over the past year.

At the current time, our FSP census lists 38 families with 42 children of which 36 are in school and 6 are not yet of school age. Costs of the school kits that we provide to the children have risen by approximately 20% over the past year ( books, uniform, shoes). Of the children in school, 6 are HIV positive. We are so proud to be able to tell our donors that that three of our FSP families now have children in college!

Additional challenges are the simple fact that many of the children are now older, and as is the case universally, pre-teens and teenagers require a much greater degree of supervision and monitoring to keep them safe and on track at this critical time. Our focus on keeping dependent children in school remains as a key goal for 2014.

Medical treatment and medication now broadly available has allowed many of our families to continue to maintain an extended period of relative stability allowing children to grow up in a family setting. We feel that we have been successful   in achieving our basic mission of assisting fragile families ( primarily single parent) to stay together . Cambodia’s recent  civil unrest been quelled by a government response making the protests illegal

Lee Bopha , our new home care coordinator has capably stepped in to her new responsibilities. Bopha, a Cambodian and trained teacher in her mid-20’s , hae worked closely for several years with Juana Encolada, our longtime and beloved home care coordinator who returned to the Maryknoll order at the end of 2013.

We are grateful that our program is able to continue on to help the children in these families strive to break the cycle of inherited poverty.

As always , we are deeply grateful to you, our generous donors for your wonderful support.

Barbara & Mark Rosasco