|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
October 2002 Helping HIV-positive Parents Plan for Their Children's Futures Population Council researcher Laelia Zoe Gilborn testified before the U.S. House of Representatives International Relations Committee in April 2002 on the urgent need to create programs for HIV-positive parents to help them plan for their children’s future well-being. “A wide body of literature tells us that children affected by AIDS are vulnerable in almost all aspects of their lives,” said Gilborn, a staff program associate of the Council’s Horizons program, which aims to improve HIV/AIDS prevention, care, support, and treatment services in developing countries. “Efforts that prolong the lives of parents and help them prepare for their children’s future can help the entire community by elevating the well-being of vulnerable children.” More than 1.7 million children in Uganda have been orphaned by the AIDS epidemic; throughout sub-Saharan Africa, that number soars to 13.2 million. In the year 2000, the Uganda AIDS Commission surveyed sources of outside assistance for orphans and vulnerable children and found that only five percent of AIDS-affected children receive support from assistance programs. Gilborn and her colleagues from Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda, together with the Ugandan office of Plan International, an international nongovernmental organization that assists children and their families, designed a research project to determine whether services that begin when parents are still alive are more effective in improving the long-term well-being of children than those that respond only after parents die. The project, supported by the U.S. Agency for International Development, draws upon an approach pioneered by the National Association of Women Living with AIDS (NACWOLA) of Uganda. “Succession planning,” as the program’s approach is called, helps HIV-positive parents provide for their children’s futures. Components include assistance in choosing a guardian for the children, preparing a written will, acclimating children to the appointed guardian, and developing programs enabling both parents and future guardians to generate income. A core element of the succession planning program is helping parents create “memory books” that contain photographs, family trees, anecdotes, and other important information providing tangible links to the children’s pasts. These books, which many parents use to help break the news to children that they are HIV-positive, later become the children’s cherished mementos. “Despite cultural taboos about discussing death,” Gilborn said, “parents in the program have begun to see memory books as a way to communicate with children and to leave them with stories about their ancestors and childhoods.” Drawing on the Horizons study for her Congressional testimony, Gilborn identified priorities for community-level interventions. The first priority should be keeping HIV-positive parents alive and healthy as long as possible. Efforts should also be made to reinforce the community’s ability to provide for its members. Additional support for schools, local nongovernmental organizations, and religious organizations can help the community care for its members in need. Protecting the property rights of women and children by providing legal support and education is also crucial. These efforts have already helped orphans to retain their family property and land and, in some cases, to support themselves with small gardens. In concluding her Congressional testimony, Gilborn added a word of caution. “It is surprisingly difficult to determine which children are affected by AIDS when so few people know or reveal their HIV status. Community programs can spend valuable resources on elaborate systems to identify AIDS-affected children, only to further label them and to leave behind other vulnerable children. Programs that elevate the well-being of all vulnerable children can avoid these pitfalls and help the entire community.” See Also
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
