Give life for 55 HIV children in Tamilnadu, India

PROJECT TITLE :

GIVE LIFE FOR 55 HIV CHILDREN IN TAMILNADU , INDIA (8640)

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FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE THROUGH :

GLOBALGIVING – ONLINE DONATION

REPORT TITLE:

WORLD AIDS DAY - NUTRITIONAL SUPPORT , REGULAR HOME VISITS AND CONSTANT COUNSELING

REPORT PERIOD :

16.10.11 to 24.01.12

        As you know we are helping through GlobalGiving 55 HIV infected children being joined with your project since September 2011. Through GlobalGiving project we are provided Nutritional support, Anti Retroviral Therapy (ART) Treatment Transport support and counseling. By the support to Global Giving project , not only health condition is improved, their skills are encouraged much. Related with this service we arranged a meeting for these children in our office Derose center on world AIDS Day on 1^st December 2011.

 WORLD AIDS DAY

All children participated in this meet. Good ideas are delivered to the children through this meeting. Nutrition supports, such as dates fruits, Corn Flakes, cicer Gram, Ground nut Green gram and palm sugar were given to the children. The participants of the meeting were ART Medical Officer Dr. Sreenivasan   Mrs. Jeevan (Trans Gender) president of Thoothukudi District HIV positive Federation and Mrs. Selvi , President of Thoothukudi positive women Welfare society. All of them offered good ideas regarding health activities.

 WORKSHOP THEMES :

 Demonstration on Nutrition mix ,

Regular Anti Retro-viral therapy in take

Health care Knowledge

Career Guidance

CD4 counts and procedure

  And about the necessity of children Education. They delivered the Nutritional materials provided by us to the children.

 All Participated children in this meeting were found very happy. All children were from varies places and not known to each other. They had the good interaction with each other. Muthu Meena a child from village is taking ART. Her father was dead and her mother also takes ART and had the good conversation with the other children. She encouraged the other children to get ART regularly as she takes the same regularly and emphasized the importance of ART. She shared with the other children and encouraged them by saying her help to her mother to take tablets and other medicines regularly. All then children attended in the meeting were very eagerly hearing the talk of the child Muthu Meena. Their faces glittered with the new hope.

 CASE STUDY :

 Another child named Esakki Muthu from keela Thattaparai also attended in this meeting . The  boy has no parents. He is   living with the guidance of his grand mother. He is studying in 9^th std. His grand mother is a wage working lady on daily basis. He is studying with her help. He shared with the  other children happily about the help of the Global Giving Project. As his grand mother was sick , he himself came to our office alone with much zeal. He also shared this with the other children.

           Not only the arrangement of this meet, we visit regularly the homes of the HIV infected children. Not only the generally counseling regarding health, but also the positive prevention counseling is necessary for them.

  A child named Kausalya from Vadakku sema puthur was visited by us She is living with her grand mother as kausalya as parents had already passed away before 5 years . She is mature girl aged about 16. As the family is  in poor condition , she wasn't in the situation of going to work in a near by Match factory being quit  her study in the midst. Being known the situation of Kausalya we talked with her grand parents.

 We have also talked with the local panchayat president to provide her grand parents an easy daily wages work for their livelihood. Also we have given counseling about health care and positive prevention counseling. Then service we do through Global Giving project is not only for the health care about children but also for the positive prevention of HIV to the children.

CASE STUDY :

Name     :      Selvi

Age        :        8

Address :         C/o Mrs. Murugamma

                        Colony street

                        Kulasekaranallur

                        Ottapidaram TK

                        Thoothukudi Dt

      My Name is Selvi. Up to my age of 3 years our family condition was very happy . My father is a farmer. We all lived together along with our grand parents. When I was 4 years old, my father expired we thought he died of some sickness

 After the death of my father my mother’s health condition became weaker day by day. My grand parents thought  that my mother became weak because of the death of my father. Ottapidaram is here our village . My mother went to the G.H at Ottapidaram and had the medical checkup over there . She was not recovered. Therefore my uncle took my mother to thoothukudi Medical College Hospital for further treatment. There the doctors doubted about my mother’s sickness and suggested for HIV Test. Eliza test was performed to my mother. In the report it was found out my mother has HIV +ve . Being heard this my mother got shocked. Following this another Eliza test was done to my mother. It was confirmed that my mother has the HIV +ve . Then only all of our family members knew that our father expired of HIV. All of our family members were pathetic about my mother. My mother was very sad and found weeping always. Following this I was also taken to the hospital for HIV test. It was also found that I had HIV +ve . Now all of our family members attention and mercy turned towards me. As the HIV +ve was not found in the time my CD4 level was very low. Therefore my mother and I are taking ART regularly. People were sad about us and nobody help us. Now the GlobalGiving project is much helpful to us.    

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With the help of our donors from GlobalGiving, Chevaliar Roche Society conducted Give life program for 55 HIV Children. The main objective of the program is to increase access to care and support to 55 children infected by HIV/AIDS through providing Counselling, educational support & provision of health mix. We aim to reduce to depression created by the external factors and induce life skills so that they are well equipped to handle complicated situations in the future. We would also provide psychosocial support including care, comfort and counselling.

I have taken special care for this 55 HIV Children’s project as I was involved in international HIV/AIDS, Allaince, London aided PWDS-Community based care and support  project for the past 9 years. As I have involved in the PWDS-CBCS project I have a good relationship with the HIV infected children. I also wanted the HIV infected children to be well off in the future. At that time Global giving along with CRS appointed me as the project co-ordinator for this project. I was happy that I can give my full effort for the sake of the HIV infected children.

We began this project early in the month by introducing us to the HIV positive federation and Thoothukudi ART centre. We explained the project to them and they guaranteed their full support for the success of the program.  We have mentioned 55 HIV children for the project but unfortunately we lost 6 children due to the impact of HIV. As ART’s medical officer suggested we inducted 6 new HIV infected children.

We have been in regular touch with the 55 HIV infected children conducting frequent home visits and most of the parents are weak. Their health is so weak that they are not able to look after them and their children’s needs. As they are economically weak they are not able to satisfy their children’s basic amenities. Due to various external factors (stigma and discrimination) the children and their parents become depressed. Our home visits help them recover quickly and we were able to see the happiness in their face.

One of the important aspects of the home visit is Counselling. We aim to induce skills to the children during counselling. I will be visiting all the children weekly twice for home visits and continuous counselling ( Psycho-social support). We also aim to give importance to their health care, self care, good nutrition and Anti Retro Viral(ART) adherence.

In order to provide nutritional support we invited the children to CRS- DEROSE centre. This program was conducted on 25.10.2011. We assembled the children in the DEROSE centre. The main objective of the program is to provide health mix (nutritional support) and counselling to the HIV infected children. The children got to know with each other and they shared their experiences with one another.

                                       Mrs. Jeevan(Transgender), president of Thoothukudi HIV positive federation delivered the presidential address. Special address was delivered by Mrs. Selvi, President of Thoothukudi Positive Women welfare society and by Mrs. Mangai, Counsellor, ART centre, Thoothukudi.

Keeping families together depends on the health of family members. So Health mix is essential for every HIV children for keeping them fit and fine. We distributed health mix to all the HIV children. Counselling was given by professional counsellors to the HIV children. The counsellors stressed on the importance of regular medical check up to the children. As it was the eve of Diwali, the children were provided with sweet box.

We were able to witness joy in the face of all the children as they rarely get opportunities like this to express themselves. It also gives us more encouragement to do programs to enlighten the life of the burdened HIV children. We are indebted to our donors and Global giving for this.