In Malawi, AIDS is the leading cause of death among people between the ages of 15 and 49. Most people don’t know their HIV status because of fear, stigma, few testing centres, and general lack of knowledge about the disease. There are over half a million orphans in Malawi. More and more orphans, as well as children with parents, are having to leave school to enter the labour force.
SIM and the Africa Evangelical Church (AEC) in Malawi have created an Orphan and Vulnerable Children (OVC) Programme to show God’s love by meeting the spiritual, physical and emotional needs of orphans and vulnerable children. They will support their extended families, through community visiting, secondary school scholarships, and establishment of an income-generating scheme—which allows the programme to work towards becoming self-sustaining.
A long, medium or short term response to orphan care?
'Give a man a fish and he eats for a day, teach him to fish and he’ll eat for life.' It’s a well known saying and makes a lot of sense as a long term response to poverty and need. But, in the short term, many may die before they can learn to fish.
Our approach to orphan care within HOPE for AIDS in Malawi is to work in partnership with the Africa Evangelical church, training church volunteers who will help meet the needs of the many children affected by HIV and AIDS, as well as support their carers.
Short term our programme responds out of compassion. . . We have many children like two year old Joab whose mother died two weeks after he was born. His father struggled to keep him alive on goat’s milk. The family then joined the community visiting programme and powdered infant milk was provided for Joab. Tragically, the father died. Now like many other orphans, Joab and his three siblings are now cared for by their grandmother. The programme has helped them with school uniforms and extra clothes as well as some emergency food. These are not long term solutions. They are living out the prayer ‘give us this day our daily bread’.
Medium term our programme looks for ways to give the children renewed hope for the future . . . Zhawu is a little boy with severely deformed legs as a result of polio. His parents had no idea that anything could be done to help him. The programme was able to connect him with Cure Hospital and provide transport from his village. Zhawu has now received corrective surgery. Now instead of a life being sidelined, or considered cursed due to his disability, he is being helped to reach his full potential.
Long term our programme provides the conditions needed to help bring about lasting change . . . Changing behaviour takes a long time. To learn new skills takes perseverence. The volunteers visit week-by-week to give the practical, emotional and spiritual encouragement which will enable the children and their carers to complete the task of ‘learning to fish’. They encourage children to attend school, support the students in the secondary school scholarship scheme, as well as training them to grow up to be godly men and women.
