Physical Health South Africa Project #13085

Preventing HIV in South African Babies

by Children's Rights Centre (CRC)

Project Report | Jan 14, 2015
Preventing HIV in South African Babies (PMTCT Campaign)

By Nombuso Zikalala | Health Programme Officer

The support from donors through the Global Giving site is deeply appreciated and acknowledged. Your contributions have allowed us to continue campaigning for the Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission (PMTCT) to strive for an aware generation of mothers knowing that HIV transmission from mother to child is preventable and has the potential to greatly influence all future generations of South Africans.

The Children’s Rights Centre which is the Secretariat of the Yezingane Network ran a successful awareness raising PMTCT campaign during the past two years. The next step of the PMTCT Campaign is to mobilize, engage and build the capacity of Yezingane Network member organizations working at provincial level on understanding and championing initiatives aimed at scaling up the prevention of Mother–to-Child Transmission (PMTCT) through workshops, community dialogues and information sharing. These initiatives will also focus on the promotion of safe breastfeeding.

The Children’s Rights Centre and the Yezingane Network will continue to utilize the various communication channels of TV, radio, print and digital media to direct messages across South Africa to a wide variety of women that includes mothers and women who are planning on a pregnancy.

As a means to strengthening collaboration and partnership around PMTCT, it is important that the youth, women and men’s sectors are included in all initiatives. In light of this inter-sectorial meetings will be held to enhance the knowledge of PMTCT and breastfeeding. These collaborations can only result in positive outcomes for the prevention of mother to child transmission and will assist in working towards the Children’s Sector’s vision of 3 Zero’s:

Zero New Infections in babies
Zero AIDS-related child deaths
Zero tolerance for child rights violations

We look forward to the continued support of donors and appreciate your generosity for it is only through our combined efforts that we prevent HIV in babies.

Permalink

Oct 8, 2014
HIV/AIDS and Breast feeding

By Nombuso Zikalala | Project Leader

Questions and Answers on Infant Feeding and HIV

According to UNICEF without preventive interventions, approximately one-third of infants born to HIV-positive mothers contract HIV through mother-to-child transmission, becoming infected during their mothers' pregnancy, childbirth or breastfeeding. In 2001, 800,000 children under the age of 15 contracted HIV, over 90 per cent of them through mother-to-child transmission of HIV (MTCT). Between 15 and 25% of children born to HIV-infected mothers get infected with HIV during pregnancy or delivery, while about 15% of the children get infected through breastfeeding.

The aim of the Prevention of Mother-To-Child Transmission of HIV and AIDS campaign launched by the Yezingane Network (housed at Children’s Rights Centre) in August 2013 was to raise awareness of PMTCT Services available to pregnant and lactating mothers as well as to promote healthy behaviours including adherence to treatment, safe breastfeeding and early and regular antenatal clinic visits. Materials were developed, printed and distributed to mothers across South Africa with the aim of educating and highlighting the significance of exclusive breast feeding.

We have seen much interest around the PMTCT campaign, and continue to strive for an aware generation of mothers knowing that HIV transmission from mother to child is preventable and has potential to greatly influence our future generation.

Thus far we have taken the initiative of translating the available PMTCT Guidelines into 2 indigenous languages namely IsiZulu and Sotho. The aim of translating the materials into local languages was for local people within the communities to be able to easily understand them and also create an awareness about the importance of PMTCT and exclusive breast-feeding. These publications are being distributed to different organisations, especially within the rural areas.

Besides the PMTCT guidelines, there is also the Infant Feeding FAQ Booklet with questions and answers for breastfeeding mothers both HIV infected and HIV negative. This booklet was produced in 2010, and has been updated. It was developed in order to inform, educate and advise mothers and health care workers about the importance of exclusive breast feeding, which simply means giving the baby no other food or drink – not even water- except breast milk. This booklet was found to be very useful by health workers and paediatricians to such an extent that the Yezingane Network saw the need to update the booklet and also translate it into the 2 local languages.

The Infant Feeding FAQ booklet is being distributed with a breastfeeding cartoon video developed for lactating mothers which was launched in the week of 1-7 August 2014 (World Breastfeeding Week.)

These valuable resources used as a platform on our social media network sites to create awareness and encourage healthy behaviours and highlight the importance of exclusive breast feeding and its benefits.

Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission Booklet

Permalink

Jul 8, 2014
Feedback Report on My Living Positively Handbook

By Nombuso Zikalala | Project Leader

This is a full-colour picture handbook for children living with HIV published by the Children's Rights Centre. It encourages children to live positively and to participate actively in the medical and health management of their illness. The book was informed by children, families, doctors, nurses and teachers. Pictures, activities and simple information provide the child with advice and clear explanations of health and treatment issues.

The support of donors through the Global Giving site is deeply appreciated and acknowledged and it has been through your assistance that we have been able to make the “My Living Positively” series a reality for many children and caregivers across South Africa.

Ever since Children's Rights Centre started distributing this handbook in April 2009, we have received nothing but positive feedback from Child Health Care Workers and other organisations who use the book as a training tool. We have also received a number of requests from partner organisations such as NACOSA (Networking AIDS Community of South Africa) and MATCH (Maternal, Adolescent and Child Health) to mention but a few asking for more copies as they find the handbook very helpful, simple and easy for children to work with and also understand their HIV status. To date we have distributed more than 8000 handbooks with the adult guides namely "Helping Children living with HIV." These were also translated into 2 indigenous languages IsiZulu and Xhosa.

Due to the demand of the materials we have once again run out of stock and currently do not have enough funding to print more copies for distribution to all other organisations in need of this very useful handbook. Children's Rights Centre has tried other means of fundraising to cover the printing costs but this was insufficient. We therefore urge all people to please continue donating in order for us to reprint the handbook to continue helping our children deal with their HIV status and also educate others.

We thank you for your commitment and support in helping children living with HIV.

Permalink

‹ 1 2 3 4 ›

About Project Reports

Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.

If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.