Food, medicines & education for 45 HIV+ve orphans

Anitha was 4 yrs old when admitted at Freedom Foundation. She was referred by Dr.Sheela Achar after testing HIV +ve.. She was admitted on 22.08.1997 with both her parents and elder sister who were all HIV +ve. However she lost both her parents and elder sister in 2000 to AIDS. She has two elder brothers and one younger brother who are HIV –ve & are taken care of by their relatives. She was very attached to her mother & was in depression when she lost her sister. Though she took a reasonably long time to cope with it, she has been a fighter from there on. She has started her 1^st line HAART in the year 2000 and shifted to 2^nd line HAART since 2009. She is one of the oldest child survivors living with this infection.

Anitha is very intelligent and smart, she and showd much interest in her education. She is very good in dancing and likes western dance and is also good in designing with any material, mehandi work & drawing. She is a child born with talent. She is very honest, straightforward, sincere and hardworking. She shows lot of interest and puts all her effort to complete her work. After completing her SSLC education, she was interested in Fashion Designing. The organisation tried to get a free admission in this course but was not able to, meanwhile she joined in KSCCW (Karnataka State Council for Child Welfare) for ‘Balashikshaka Training’ of 10 months. After this, she showed less interest to continue her career in this line, during this time through the previous efforts she got admission for a Diploma in Fashion Designing.

In the year 2015, she completed her 3 yrs Diploma in Fashion Designing and continued with six months training as teaching faculty in the same institute. Now she is keen to start her career in this field especially in ‘Sketches and Designing’, and has posted her resume to a few boutiques. Now she has started doing creative things like bookmarks, pen stand, key chains, etc. out of craft papers, wool, newspapers, etc.