George Pope, executive director of the Medical Benevolence Foundation, at food supply center for orphaned children. Photo: Dorothy Hanson.
The AIDS crisis has created more than 12 million orphans in sub-Saharan Africa, according to the U.N. AIDS program. By 2010 that number is expected to grow to more than 18 million.
African churches have been a leading force in establishing community-based orphan care. Typically older siblings, grandparents, uncles or aunts tend to AIDS orphans, but community members pitch in to help their neighbors care for the children.
Community-based orphan care programs are operating across Africa both in urban areas and rural villages. In some rural communities open-air pavilions have been constructed to serve as "feeding stations" for AIDS orphans.
Frank Dimmock, a PC(USA) health consultant for southern and eastern Africa, says the community-based orphan care programs are designed to:
- Enable extended families and guardians to keep children within the home community
- Provide opportunities for village/church volunteers to help in the development of their community
- Free elderly guardians from constant child-care responsibilities, providing time for household chores, gardening and income-generating activities
- Integrate orphans with other children in their village and facilitate formal education
- Support child-headed households with basic resources
- Provide a site and an opportunity for health screening, counseling and psychosocial development
- Provide a venue for village meetings, literacy classes, and vocational training
- Minister to orphans, widows, the handicapped, and the chronically ill, providing a place of support and hope
Community grain banks, gardens and shallow wells assist in supplying an adequate supply of food and water for the programs. The PC(USA) supports orphan care programs by helping communities buy food and dig wells, and the Medical Benevolence Foundation, a PC(USA) validated mission support group, has been involved in the construction of feeding stations. In some areas the cost of feeding an orphan is less than $30 per month.
Crosby Mphande, a Presbyterian layman, is executive director of an NGO in Malawi that deals with orphan care. He says the community-based approach works well in sub-Saharan Africa, where there is a strong emphasis on family and community.
"Orphanages are the last resort," says Mphande, "if there isn't anything else the community can do." |
