Orphans and vulnerable children

This book is designed to help people who work with children initiate meaningful dialogue and engage them in a cheerful and positive manner. It considers issues around encouraging children’s participation, why it is important, and what to include when planning children’s participation. It discusses issues of safety in accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and why, how and when to use games. It contains activities and ideas on how to include children in participatory processes

A set of eight booklets designed to support programme design and practice at the community level around children made vulnerable or orphaned by HIV or AIDS in Africa. The resources are all locally adaptable and are based on the experience of Alliance, its partners and other organisations. The booklets are called "Overview"; "Psychosocial support"; "Health and nutrition"; "Economic strengthening"; "Education"; "Social inclusion"; "Older Carers"; and "Young children and HIV"

This manual attempts to articulate major principles of psychosocial project design and evaluation practices in concise, user-friendly terms. It is intended for field-based managers and coordinators of psychosocial programming, as well as for managers of emergency relief programmes who may want to integrate psychosocial programming methods into more traditional relief efforts, such as food distribution, construction projects, and medical assistance. The manual also seeks to heighten critical awareness of the cultural and ethical issues associated with psychosocial work

This report contains statistics on children orphaned by HIV/AIDS from 88 different countries, analysis of the trends found in these statistics and principles for helping children. This is the third report in a series (previous reports in 1997 and 2000) and is a collaboration between USAID, UNICEF and UNAIDS. Critical points addressed in the report are that HIV/AIDS has created an orphan crisis, but that orphans due to other causes also need attention. AIDS threatens chidren's lives, and communities with a high proportion of orphans requiring urgent assistance. The crisis is such that no one can act alone and therefore collaboration is the key

This executive summary includes new orphan estimates for 34 countries; a description of what children, families and communities are doing to address their growing orphan problems; strategies for interventions that have been adopted; and a new strategic agenda to guide coherent action by the world community

The International Save the Children’s Alliance organised a project called ‘Care and Protection of Separated Children in Emergencies’ to address the issue of children that are separated from their parents in situations of armed conflict, natural disasters, pandemics such as AIDS and various forms of exploitation and abuse. The initiative explored issues of fostering, group care, and other types of care arrangements for children. The project produced case studies in 6 countries. Participatory research with children was a key theme. This paper offers a ten-point analysis of the typical negative features of institutional care and then looks at community based care. This is done firstly under the heading of preventative approaches to avoid the unnecessary separation of children, then alternative care strategies such as community based care. There are some concluding comments pointing towards the need for further research and the need to place more emphasis on what children themselves have to say in research, in policy formulation and in developing good practice

This is an interesting response to an article in the Washington Post, which described the horrific impact that AIDS had on a family in Kenya. Williamson responds by saying that the article promotes a distorted image of Africa, an image that is promoted by most US news coverage on HIV/AIDS. News coverage is of statistics and tragic stories, but not of responses that are being made at the community level to protect and care for orphans and other vulnerable children. He suggests that this lack of recognition of the actual capacity of communities in Africa makes it difficult to convince US donors of the importance of strengthening first line responses to the impact of HIV/AIDS which are ultimately family and community capacities

One of the major challenges facing governments, international organisations and non-governmental organisations in their responses to children made vulnerable by HIV and AIDS is the lack of data on the quality and effectiveness of their interventions. This document provides guidance to these institutions in the monitoring and evaluation of the national response for children orphaned and made vulnerable by HIV and AIDS. It includes methods and tools for measurement at the national level. The guide is organised into two parts. The first discusses issues relevant to the general monitoring and evaluation of orphans and other children made vulnerable by HIV and AIDS and the second part provides specific guidance in the use of the recommended indicators

This valuable new report looks at the levels of infection of HIV and AIDS, the levels of orphaning and child headed households, sexual debut and sexual experiences and risk factors and risk environments for children aged 2-14 in South Africa. This has been investigated as the HSRC recognizes that there is very little known about HIV prevalence rates among children or about the risk factors that predispose them to becoming infected. The study looks at the social and community risk factors that predispose children to HIV infection as well as the impact of the epidemic on children in terms of orphan status and child headed households. It examines children’s knowledge of HIV and AIDS prevention, their knowledge about sexual behaviour and HIV as well as their own patterns of sexual behaviour and changes in that behaviour. This study is interesting as it explicitly includes young children

A report from a meeting for exchange and learning between organisations working with orphans and vulnerable children in India, looking community responses to working with this group. The experience of Plan International, Palmyrah Workers Development Society and the International HIV/AIDS Alliance was presented to the meeting. Specific responses to working with orphans and vulnerable children discussed in the report include lessons from a child participatory approach, prevention of mother-to-child transmission and the development of community action

This paper presents a summary of the global orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) situation, and current policy responses. It is meant for individuals with strategic decision making responsibilties for HIV/AIDS programmes. It firstly defines what is meant by OVC and points out that sub-Saharan Africa has the most OVCs in the world and is therefore the focus of the paper. It outlines existing policy frameworks in responding to OVC including international and national instruments. It identifies policy gaps in national responses to the OVC crisis, and proposes a country-level OVC policy package based on current thinking. The focus is on children under 18 in general, and there is no response to specific age groups

Taking Better Care looks at the situation facing orphaned and vulnerable children in the Rakai District in Uganda and at the legacy of Save the Children's Child Social Care Project (CSCP) there. The report examines the impact of the CSCP, implemented between 1991 and 1996, and at trends in Rakai since the CSCP ended, as well as outlining the lessons learned and providing recommendations for future action. It concludes that in order to support orphans and vulnerable children in a long-term, sustainable way, child-care models now need to incorporate a maximum of state support and civil society mobilisation, combined with more traditional family support

'The Journey of Life' is a community workshop curriculum to support children. This workshop seeks to address the increasing psychological and social needs of children affected by HIV/AIDS, war, and displacement. Its objective is to raise community awareness of the problems that children face growing up in a time of HIV/AIDS, war, and family disintegration. 'The Journey of Life' assists the community to identify children in need of social, emotional, intellectual, spiritual, and physical support. Through dialogue and reflection the community better understands how to use available resources in solving the problems that children encounter and to strengthen the resilience of their children. The workshop covers the areas of meeting children's needs; understanding children's problems; identifying children who need help; building children's strengths; and community mobilisation. The workshop manual can be used without additional training, though further training has been found to be helpful. A Facilitator's Guide accompanies the workshop

This is a key report that documents community responses and coping mechanisms towards the HIV/AIDS pandemic in relation to children affected by AIDS (CABA) and orphans and vulnerable children (OVC). Fostering families are under enormous strain and local initiatives at the community level have been little studied or documented, and few organisations have sought to encourage their development. The paper analyses some of these initiatives and encourages external agencies to support them through building the capacity of local responses rather than imposing external solutions