Health Care for 450 HIV+ Children in Zambia

Challenge

Over 1 million children have been orphaned in Zambia - most due to AIDS. Since 42% of the population lives in extreme poverty, it is hard for families to care for its orphans. Many orphaned children live in grandmother or child headed households. Most grandmothers have little or no knowledge about HIV, and no source of income. This program equips grandmas/families with the right tools (via education and training), so they can take better care of their HIV+ children and become more self-reliant

Solution

This program provides food, medicines, and a package of life saving health care services to 450 HIV+ children and training in HIV care and prevention to family members. The package includes health checkups, psycho social counseling, education in prevention of HIV, and training and monitoring in adherence to medication. The high quality continuous care provided leads to an improvement in the children's health so they can attend school. With better knowledge families can take steps to prevent HIV.

Long-Term Impact

We see an improvement in the health of children measured by weight, malnutrition, viral load, CD4 counts, increase in school attendance, more women going in for voluntary counseling and testing, and better knowledge of HIV prevention and care. More people getting tested and starting treatment leads to prevention and spread of HIV. With more open discussions, HIV related stigma and discrimination is lower. The result is a stronger community, more self-reliant in taking care of its own health.

Additional Documentation

This project has provided additional documentation in a XLSX file (projdoc.xlsx).

Resources