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In this video, Kick4Life demonstrates how the organization works to give vulnerable children in Lesotho a life with dignity. It shares the story of Stanam Mokomo, a young girl who was left homeless after her parents died. This video also highlights Kick4Life's social entreneurship model, which helps children like Stanam have a more secure life.
ABSTRACT
Care for AIDS orphans in southern Africa is frequently characterized as a “crisis”, where kin-based networks of care are thought to be on the edge of collapse. Yet these care networks, though strained by AIDS, are still the primary mechanisms for orphan care, in large part because of the essential role grandmothers play in responding to the needs of orphans. Ongoing demographic shifts as a result of HIV/AIDS and an increasingly feminized labor market continue to disrupt and alter networks of care for orphans and vulnerable children. This paper examines the emergence of a small but…
The Minimum Package is a guide to encourage the harmonizing of service delivery for Orphans and Other Vulnerable Children and Youth (OVCY) across the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region. Member States can adopt or adapt these standards and guidelines at the national level. The Minimum Package identifies the basic needs of children and youth and the services they require as well as complementing services needed to deliver basic services. It also identifies the primary and secondary sectors and actors that can respond and how their services can be delivered in a coordinated,…
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The SADC region has an estimated 250 million people among the Member States. In each Member State more than 50% of the population is under the age of 18. These children need care, protection and support. Unfortunately for many, vulnerability does not end when they leave childhood. Many youth continue to be at risk. Poverty is endemic and employment scant. Many youth have limited training, are unable to find work, and potentially engage in risky coping strategies to survive. Certain groups are even more vulnerable. Young women aged 15-24 are three to four…
This study sought to assess, analyse and inform the different forms of vulnerabilities affecting children and youth, and their effects and existing strategies and programmes addressing the challenges and vulnerabilities facing orphans, vulnerable children and youth (OVCY) in the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) region. The study also sought to propose recommendations for improvement, and development of minimum standards for OVCY and the finalisation of the SADC OVCY Strategic Framework.
ABSTRACT
Research pertaining to children’s geographies has mainly focused on children’s physical experiences of space, with their ‘imagined geographies’ receiving far less attention. The few studies of children’s imagined geographies that exist tend to focus on children’s national identities and their understanding of distant places. However, children’s lives are not necessarily static and they often move between places. Research has not so far considered children’s images of these transitional spaces or how such images are constructed. Through an examination of over 800 thematic drawings…
Poverty, the HIV/AIDS pandemic and food insecurity are currently the biggest threat to the survival, care, protection and development of children in Lesotho. Together, they are constraining the provision of basic social services and jeopardizing the protection of children.
The care and protection of this overwhelming number of children deprived of their parent/s and without the nurturing and protective environment of their primary caregivers is a national challenge. It is also concerning that there is an absence of appropriate policy and a legislative frame work specifically…
As the impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic continues to be experienced most severely in Southern Africa, 14% of children are now orphans and 48% of these children have been orphaned due to AIDS. These children are often uninformed about their rights and have difficulty accessing the support to which they are entitled, particularly if they do not have the support of a parent or caregiver. This report reviews legal and policy frameworks to protect the rights of vulnerable children, particularly those affected or infected by HIV/AIDS in 10 Southern African countries. The countries included are:…
Improving food production and nutrition is one of the best ways to help vulnerable households cope with HIV/AIDS and its impacts. There is a strong two-way relationship between food insecurity and the epidemic: households affected by HIV/AIDS have less time and energy for food production, while reduced access to food increases people’s general vulnerability and accelerates the disease in those already infected. Homestead gardening can help to break this connection. It offers a wider range of potential crops than field-based agriculture, requires less time and labor and can provide a…
The devastating consequences of HIV/AIDS on African societies, and its particular impact on children, is requiring every organisation involved in fighting the epidemic to find new strategies to address adequately both the scale of the problem and its duration. The crisis of children left behind by AIDS is a humanitarian, development and human rights challenge of unprecedented proportions.
Although there have been substantial gains in improving overall child survival, these gains are being eroded in African countries hardest hit by the epidemic. The scale of the epidemic on this…