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SUFFERING FROM HIV OR AIDS |
| In the area where
our Brothers live and work a program of home based care is set up to relieve
and help persons who are affected by HIV and / or who suffer from AIDS. The program encompasses about 37 villages in the surroundings of Mary View. A group of volunteers, presently consisting of 65 women and 2 men, are the agents of this care. Every Monday 10.000 kg maize and 3000 kg mandolo (a kind of pea) are distributed. The number of young and adult persons affected in the area is very high. On 26 December 2002 only children who were orphans because of AIDS were invited for a Christmas dinner in the main hall of Montfort Teachers Training Centre in Mary View. The number of those present exceeded 1500 ! Bro. Wladimir van Heck f.i.c. |
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Christmas celebration for more than 1500 Aids-orphans |
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| Members of the group of volunteers preparing the food for the Christmas meal. | A number of the volunteers involved in home based care during one of their meetings |
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Next to this we take care of 15 babies whose mothers died in childbirth. We try to find somebody who looks after the child. In most cases this is the grandmother. We offer them the money to buy lactogen, which is expensive, but we like to give every child a chance to live. The children are doing well. We also pay schoolfees for about 60 orphans who have been selected for secondary education. [March 2003] |
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A report of the British organization "Christian Aid" indicates that at this moment (Spring 2001) 12 million children in Africa have become orphans, who have lost both their parents because of AIDS. This number will probably increase to 43 million in 2010. According to this report a whole generation of children in Africa is growing up without parents. And what makes the situation even worse: Also the relatives, who often take care of these orphans, frequently die of AIDS - and so the children are left to the streets. In 2000 more than 2 million persons died of AIDS in Africa alone. More than 25 million persons in Africa suffer from AIDS or are infected by HIV. |
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