Pain in My Heart

Video used as part of Presentation. The whole powerpoint presentation is useless without me talking so I will find a way to combine the two. Many thanks to Hopewell Chin'ono your work has made an amazing difference in my own work.

Children and the Future of Africa - Noerine Kaleeba

Today we know that African children infected and affected by HIV/AIDS are the ultimate developmental nightmare for a continent grappling with major socio-economic problems. According to UNAIDS, every day around the world, 2,000 infants contract HIV through their mothers—95% of these infants are Africans. Every day, 6,000 children lose one or both parents to AIDS—more than 90% of these children are Africans. Every day, 1600 children die of AIDS—90% of these children are Africans. Today, a child in Southern Africa has a 50% chance of dying from AIDS. Today in Africa, 95% of pregnant mothers do not have access to health programs that can significantly reduce the incidence of mother-to-child transmission of HIV. The worst is yet to come. According to UNAIDS, UNICEF, and USAID, by 2010 at least 20 million AIDS orphans will live in Africa.

Until then, large numbers of children orphaned by AIDS will become young adults. Whether these children are socialized, educated, clothed, or fed, they will assume their role in the society. Twenty million uneducated, street-hardened, weather-beaten, and ultimately bitter African children will present formidable challenges to our continent and the world.

February 2008

THE CHILDREN THAT ARE NOT.....................

MUSINA - Zimbabwean children are being drawn to South Africa to run errands and perform piecemeal jobs for shoppers from their own country - who are heading south because of the unavailability of basic goods in their own country.
The South African border town of Musina has become a shopper's paradise for Zimbabweans; these days there appear to be more vehicles with Zimbabwean registration plates than there are with South African ones. The town is also a regional trucking hub. The collapse of Zimbabwe's economy, with annual inflation officially estimated at 2.2 million percent, has turned Musina into a boom town. "Don't worry mkoma [brother] I will look after your car, your small boy is here," a boy shouts to the Zimbabwean driver who has parked his car outside the supermarket. The 14-year-old Zimbabwean boy, who declined to be identified, told IRIN: "I do not charge a fixed amount - some give me R5 per car, some give me food, and some just drive away."Polite Mpofu, 15, who gathers with other children at a South African café frequented by truckers as night falls, earns money by loading and unloading goods from taxis and buses crossing the border. Barefoot and dressed in rags, he says travellers rely on his services. Talent Dube, 13, from Zvishavane, told IRIN his main business was collecting discarded water bottles in South Africa and then selling them in Zimbabwe, where they are in huge demand. "I make more money in South Africa, especially when I carry the 20 litres of fuel - I am paid R10. The Zimbabweans across the border pay in Zimbabwe dollars, which cannot buy anything," he said, waiting for a driver to leave the food promised to him. A security guard at a truck stop told IRIN that there appeared to be more children coming to South Africa since the disputed elections in Zimbabwe in March and June."Some of the children come in from Zimbabwe in the morning and return in the evening. They go through the border and no one seems to do anything to stop them from crossing," said the guard, who declined to be identified. "I am worried about the little girls who enter the parking lot for the trucks, one wonders what happens in the dark, the girls can be raped." Sally, 14, from Zimbabwe, earns money by running errands for street traders. She told IRIN that the South African police did not arrest or interrogate the younger children, although this was not the case with children in their late teens."We actually sleep next to the police houses at night, we are safer there,"she said. A 2007 report by Save the Children (UK): Children on the move - Protecting unaccompanied migrant children in South Africa and the region, said the main pull factors for most of the unaccompanied migrant children living in South Africa stemmed from the belief that they had a better chance of finding work or other income-earning opportunities and going to school than if they remained in their home country. - IRIN

God Help Us to do right by these children

Critics

"It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause, who at best knows achievement and who at the worst if he fails at least fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

From a speech given in Paris at the Sorbonne in 1911

"Theodore Roosevelt"

Sub-Saharan Africa - HIV/AIDS Policy Fact Sheet July 2008...and my thoughts obviously

http://www.kff.org/hivaids/upload/7391-071.pdf
I will summarize....67% of the people living with HIV, 70% of the new infections and 75% of HIV related deaths are found in this region which amazingly has 11 - 12% of the world's population! Forget malaria and everything else HIV is the leading cause of death in this region. South Africa has 5.7 million people living with the HI Virus...the highest number in the world and Swaziland small as it is has the highest prevalence in the world.
Women are infected more than men in this region.
Now get this of all the children living with HIV in the world 1.8 million live in this region which is 90% of the world's under 15 HIV +ve AND 11.6 million of the world’s 15.0 million AIDS orphans live in Sub- Saharan Africa.

Now if you have been reading my recent entries you will see that I am moving my work to these children. 11.6 million was the population of the whole of Zimbabwe in 2002 that gives you the scale of what that figure means. Now we know the risk of HIV infection and it's impact feeds on the violations of human rights including discrimination against women and marginalized groups such as sex workers and people who inject drugs which also begets further violations such as further discrimination and in some cases violence.

Now you have right now 11.6 million children living in areas where a lot of their human rights are a luxury. They do not know them as rights and access to them is well you can sum that up.
Sub Saharan Africa is sitting on a time bomb right now. These children need major help. They need access to education and facilities that equip them to be citizens who are able to build the region. Another thing we all usually over look is that these children need to be in a society where they get support, encouragement and love.

Life has been very hard for these children from a very early age and they have suffered discrimination at very early stages in their lives. Foster care in places like Zimbabwe is difficult and I feel this is where the communities step in. Just to love and nurture and to give time. This can be done by people already in the communities and the churches we have.

If we are too busy to do this we run the risk of having a lot of anti-social behaviour in our midst which starts that cycle of abuse that makes HIV feel at home. I believe support for these communities is a key point in the fight against HIV.