Help Destitute Moms with AIDS Care for Their Kids

December 3 is Giving Tuesday Match Day ! 

Mark is in Cambodia this week to look in on our programs there. As usual, he is meeting with each of the women in our AIDS Patient Family Support Program. Among those is a 39 year old mother who has AIDS. Ms. K  has an extremely low IQ .   Ms. K has been in our program for many years. During much of her adult life she has supported herself and later on, her son, age 9, by collecting recyclables on the streets of Phnom Penh.

Early this year and without first consulting our staff, Ms. K decided to leave Phnom Penh to go to live with her sister in a province in the northeastern part of Cambodia.  At that point and for several subsequent months she was not receiving our support or being monitored by our staff.

While visiting relatives during the Cambodian New Year holidays in April, Ms. K was raped by the husband of her aunt and Ms. K  is now eight months pregnant. The man does not deny his responsibility but he and his wife refused to provide any support for Ms. K or the baby,  so about five months ago, she returned to Phnom Penh Ms K, once again in the care of  our program.

Ms. K is due to deliver her baby in December and our field staff person has already connected her with an organization which provides free infant formula to mothers who work, as she does, in trash recycling.  This is a real blessing as the estimated cost of infant formula power is about $ 30 per month.

Even now, just one month before the expected delivery date of the baby, Ms. K works at pulling a cart around the streets of the city each day collecting recyclable materials such as bottles, cans, cardboard and scrap metal which she then  sells to supplement the support from our program that she receives for herself and her son.  High blood pressure limits the number of day when she can do such hard work but whenever she feels able, about an average of 3 days per week, she is out on the streets doing the only job that she knows and perhaps the only job that her limited mental capacity allows her to do.

When Mark asked her how she expects to do such work after the baby is born,  Ms. K explained that when her nine year old son was born, she stayed in the hospital for three or four days and then immediately resumed working on the streets, keeping her newborn infant son in the same cart in which she hauls her recyclables. Ms. K explained, that once again, she intends to return to working on the streets very soon after the birth of her new baby.

Of course, our program will now  assume responsibility for making sure that Ms. K and her new baby are safe and that they have what they need to insure that both mother and baby remain healthy.

 The photo that you see shows a house and neighborhood  that is typical of how many of our families live. It rents for $40 per month.  The cart is Ms. K’s recycling cart .

Your generous and kind support  really does make a difference.  It means that we can continue to support fragile families like Ms. K, her son and her new baby  and provide the  educational and living support that is needed  to break the cycle of inherited poverty.

Dec. 3 is GivingTuesday Match Day. GlobalGiving will match donations up to $1000 per donor per organization on  PROPORTIONAL  basis. This means the more we raise as a percentage of total donations, the larger our donations. GlobalGiving will have a pool of $ 500,000 in matching funds.

Please help us to continue our support of this product and to optimize donations with matching funds. 

We are deeply grateful for your support! 

Barbara  & Mark Rosasco

Our AIDS Patient Family Support Program  provide the 18  fragile families who remain  in our program , with  modest, bare bones living assistance.  Determining the amount of  financial assistance  is complex, taking into consideration actual expenses like  rent, utilities food as well as unexpected needs, such a  medical or other family emergency.  Beyond the actual cost factors, we also have to look at the ability of a family or family member to contribute to their living expenses through regular or  occasional work. Budgets overall and by necessity are tight and extremely modest. The monthly total   program costs per family currently range from $150 to $200.  A recent  hospital visit for one program participant  added another $ 130 .

It is now estimated, by our staff on the ground,   that it costs about 10,000 riel  ( about $ 2.50 ) per day per person  for food, which totals about $75 per  month per person. Current  “ official” statistics  estimate food inflation at 3% per year, but numbers like these can often be stated to represent a desired political message that may not reflect the purchasing power of real people.  Program food subsidies  currently range from $50 to $ 70 per household. Our long held policy is that families need to try to contribute to their own support whenever possible, but each family situation is unique. For example, in cases where there is but a single person in the household whose health does not support any sort of employment income, we will determine the amount of  additional support that may be needed. Consequently, we  have  raised some food allowances in recent months  and we continue to evaluate the subsidies that we provide each family in the program.

In memory

We recently lost a member in our program family.   Ms.  S. who had AIDS,  came to us 17 years ago from a Catholic program  in Phnom Penh, where she had been treated for other medical reasons. Ms. S was in her mid 40’s when she passed away. Her numerous health programs did not allow her to work. Our program allowed her to live and die  with simple dignity.  Her ashes have been returned to her hometown in the countryside.

Your kind and generous donations support  the fragile  families remaining in our program to live in dignity in  a modest , simple lifestyle and to assist  them in their final journey at the end of their days.

Barbara & Mark Rosasco