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Facing the AIDS Epidemic, Kisumu, Kenya(Continued)

Left: Mourine Omondi is ten years old. She lost both parents to AIDS and Mourine herself is HIV positive. She is in the CRF Child Sponsorship in Kisumu.

To prevent more tragedies like Mourine's, CRF is helping to construct a Voluntary Testing and Counseling Center in Kisumu. The center will provide health care, counseling, and education.

What Does It Cost to Save a Generation? Working together we can make a difference!
To provide staff and operational expenses of the AIDS testing and counseling center will cost about $2500/month. That sounds like a lot, but each one doing what he can will make a big difference in the lives of children trapped in a world of horror: Some can give $25/month, some $50, and some $100 or more. Isn't it worth it to save a generation? Click HERE to help. . .

Right: Pictured here are Sandra Atieno, Brayon Ochieng, Dickens Andajo and Bonita Ohiambo in the CRF Child Sponsorship in Kisumu, having lost one or more family members to AIDS.

AIDS in Africa touches children in two ways:
1. As a disease that kills their parents, leaving them orphans
2. As a disease that infects children themselves.

Ten percent of the world's people live in Africa, but it is home to 90 percent of the world's HIV-infected children. In sub-Saharan Africa 470,000 children die every year from AIDS. Most of these children will not live to see their 5th birthdays. More than 5.5 million children in eastern and southern Africa have lost their mothers or both parents to AIDS.

Overextended Families
The existence of orphans is not new. Orphans in Africa are by tradition absorbed into extended family networks. With the advent of AIDS, however, the extended family has become overextended. Orphans may be sent to live with relatives already caring for children from three or four families. Orphans in some cases have no choice but to form child-headed households in which older children raise their younger brothers and sisters.

AIDS orphans suffer on many levels.
1. Orphans are less likely to be able to go to school or to have access to adequate health care. They may need to drop out of school to care for a dying parent or to care and provide for younger siblings
2. They are likely to have been exposed to tuberculosis and other infections plaguing an HIV-positive adult
3. Orphans are more likely to live in poverty, to be malnourished, to engage in hazardous labor, and to suffer from psychosocial problems..

Without help, adults will continue to die of AIDS, leaving children behind in a vacuum deprived of parental guidance -- a sea of youth, disadvantaged, vulnerable, under-educated, without opportunity for a future.

A Ray of Hope
The Voluntary Testing and Counseling Center in Kisumu, Kenya is attempting to reverse this downward spiral by:

1. AIDS testing - to determine who needs treatment.
2. Medical treatment - to prolong the lives of affected adults and children, resulting in fewer orphans and healthier adults and children.
3. Fighting the myths. Igorance of the cause and treatment of AIDS has contributed to the rapid spread of this disease. For example, the cruel myth is prevalent in Africa that having sex with a virgin will cure AIDS. As a result, younger and younger girls are targeted by infected men.
4. Teaching Christian principles, strengthening families, marriages, church and community.

12 million orphans struggle to survive in Africa. As many as 730,000 Kenyan children have become orphans because their parents have died of AIDS. Each one has a name and a face:

Even when only one parent dies, the hardship is great. The burden of caring for the orphans falls on a single parent or already overstretched families. Such is the case for most of the children in the CRF Child Sponsorship in Kisumu. Without help, their chance of survival is small. They survive on a diet of corn meal cooked in water, some vegetables, rice, and sometimes fish. They live in overcrowded huts of mud and grass. The incomes in these households range from $4/mo to $40/mo

With your help, these children WILL have a future .. . Click HERE to help. . .