The Children
Imagine you are seven years old and watching your parents die of AIDS.
- Imagine you could face the same lonely and painful death.
- Imagine having no food, no money and living miles from any community.
- Now imagine, at seven years old you have become the head of your family.
Most people are aware of the chilling facts of AIDS in Africa. What is not immediately evident is its knock on effects. Whole families of children – some infected by the virus, others not – are being orphaned in their thousands. Children are the innocent victims of AIDS.
The child-headed family phenomenon through AIDS is growing daily in rural South Africa as a whole generation of parents is wiped out. It means the older children must take on the role of parents by providing food, clothing, accommodation and caring for themselves and their orphaned siblings as no consistent State support exists for them. It means that the child head of the family must effectively raise their brothers and sisters and forgo the opportunity, through education, of wrenching themselves out of the poverty trap.
There are at least 2,500orphans and 1,000 child-headed families that have been identified in the 50 square mile radius surrounding the Holy Cross Hospice. Our primary concern is to try to help meet their basic needs. We want to help give them a chance to be children. These children are not merely statistics, they are human beings suffering terrible psychological effects from the loss of their parents. They are hungry, poverty stricken, frightened and lonely.
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