Food, medicines & education for 45 HIV+ve orphans

During April-May 2015, six children 3 girls- Bhavana, Manjula & Jacqueline and 3 boys-Abdul, Nagaraj & Vinodh appeared for their tenth board exams. Throughout the year, these kids were specially encouraged and motivated to maintain their study schedule, health, medicine timings, etc. They had also received efficient support from other kids & staff and guidance from two individual volunteers. All these kids were facing challenges in different aspects, all are on HAART medication / treatment, they have learning difficulties and health issues.

Steps taken to ensure that all the 6 kids get through in their board exams:

It was a real challenge for us to see that all these kids successfully complete their 10^th because except one child others were weak in their academics, three had learning difficulties and one was sick throughout the year.

• Regular school visits – were done by the social worker / counselor / caretaker from the beginning of the year, had discussions with the respective teachers which helped us to monitor, guide and help the children to improve in their weak areas.
• Individual attention - Staff & Volunteers helped every child to complete their daily homework, class work and the projects
• Regular Monitoring – Study hours was strictly maintained, they were insisted to sit in group / individual & complete their portions on daily basis, monitored their progress by appreciating their improvements & encouraging them to improve in their weaker subjects

Through their sincere efforts and preparation, all kids successfully passed in their exams. The percentage scored by each kid: Bhavana-79%, Nagaraj-57%, Jacqueline -55%, Abdul-54%, Vinodh-52% and Manjula-41%

Child Manjula aged 19yrs was continuously sick since Jan 2015. She had cough and fever, did not recover even after continuous treatment, then detected for TB and started ATT. Her CD4 count had come down, weight had reduced, she had intermittent cough, cold & fever, continuously treated & followed up with nebulization and medicines.

After the results, we sat with each child, understood their area of interest in continuing their education, explained their strengths & weaknesses wherever needed and jointly decided the course for each kid. Then with the help of college personnel and few volunteers, all the kids are admitted in different colleges for PU and Diploma courses under concessional fee. Two kids are admitted at Reva Group of Institution (one for PU-science & one for PU-commerce), two at RBANMS PU college (PU-Arts) and two at Vijaya Vittall Institute of Technology (for Diploma in Mechanical Engineering).