Help Destitute Moms with AIDS Care for Their Kids

P)lease join us April 3 -7 for GlobalGiving's "Little by Little"  Campaign where donations up to $50 per donor per organization will receive a 50% match.

Since 1999, Kasumisou Foundation has provided care and support to the AIDS afflicted poor with a particular emphasis on supporting single homeless women in and around Phnom Penh,Cambodia's capital city.

The AIDS Patients Family Support Program (FSP), has long been posted on GlobalGiving as"Help Destitute Moms with AIDS Care for Their Kids" ,  a functional name for the program's goals. This program  is a formalized effort to provide homeless and destitute women afflicted by mid-to-late stages of AIDS with basic housing,monthly food support and sponsorship for the school expenses for their primary and secondary school age dependent children.

In the earliest years of our  program, Kasumisou Foundation provided antiretroviral medicines (ARVs, often referred to as the
"AIDS cocktail" ) to some of our AIDS afflicted patients. Due to the eventual availability in Cambodia of free medicines from the UN’s Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, we no longer needed to provide ARVs. We did, however, continue to provide destitute AIDS afflicted women and children with modest housing,food support, school expenses, basic medicines, transportation to and from medical appointments and consistent counseling and encouragement.

As we approach the end of Q1  2023, we are supporting 17 households. Within these households there are 25 adults comprised of  17 women and two husbands, one of whom is physically disabled, three elderly women who are the mothers of
three of our women, three young adult children, two of whom who have very significant  developmental disabilities. In addition to the 25 adults there are 11 minor children.

Program expenses for March  of $2,645  are representative of our typical monthly expenses and  break down  as follows:

• Food support for 17 families:   $1,625.00
• Rent and utilities for ten families**: $430.00
• Other miscellaneous expenses including school fees and transportation to medical appointments:  $35.00 
• Salaries for one part time administrator and one full time field staffer: $555.00

** Seven of our families are housed with relatives and do not, therefore, require rent support from our program. As  some of you may recall, years ago, our program was much larger – operating for many years with as many as 70 to 75 households under our care. However, over the nearly quarter century that we have been doing this work, we have always tried to emphasize the need to move toward self-sufficiency.

Consequently,  over the years,  improved economic conditions in Cambodia provided  more jobs for some of our family members .As their children became educated, grew up and became  able to contribute to the family’s support, we continued to narrow our support to only those families who had few or no other resources  on which they could rely. In the past  3 years we have admitted only two families to the program.

Your generous support over these many years has helped us to provide dignified living conditions to fragile individuals and
families who otherwise might be homeless and living on the streets.

We hope that you will join us April 3 -7 for GlobalGiving's "Little by Little"  Campaign where donations up to $50 per donor per organization will receive a 50% match.

We sincerely appreciate your loyal and generous support.

Barbara & Mark