Help Destitute Moms with AIDS Care for Their Kids

As you know, our program has been serving  HIV/AIDs afflicted women and children  in Cambodia  for more than 25 years. For much  of this time, we had supported approximately 75 AIDS afflicted women and  their 100 to 125 dependent  children , many of whom also suffered from HIV infection. Thanks to the  successful introduction of anti-retroviral drug therapy in Cambodia, which began in 2002 and which eventually, over several years reached nearly all of Cambodia's AIDs afflicted poor , we found that  fewer patients were dying  and instead we had  developed a roster of chronically ill program participants..  Starting in  2013 , we were able to gradually reduce our number of program participants by about half, as a consequence of successful drug therapy  which allow some restoration of general health and a return to self sufficiency. This reduction was also assisted by a general improvement in the Cambodian economy which provided employment opportunities  for more part time workers and which   increased  family incomes. 

From 2017 onward, as more and more of our women recovered their health to the degree necessary to allow them to work to support themselves and their children, we further reduced our patient numbers to approximately 20-25 women  and  15 their dependent children. By the  end of 2023 , due to the deaths of some of our women and as some of the children grew up and became independent, our roster had  fallen to 18 adults and 7 children.  Many of the adults in our  program, in our opinion, are unlikely to ever be capable of living independently. 

Now in January 2024 as we survey our program participants and evaluate  the  their condition,  this month we will further reduce our numbers. Three women, who have all been  in our program for at least 20 years, have been selected to leave the program because their children are now fully grown and  successfully working, earning an independent living and capable of taking on the support of their mothers.  

There is a certain degree of fragility in each of these women's situations, but, due to the precarious funding situation of Kasumisou Foundation, we feel that it is necesary to begin cutting our spending . After careful evaluation, we  have selected these three women to reduce our program numbers, because we feel that  they are now able to survive without our support.  

Needless to say, it is a painful decision  to cut these three women, all of  whom have been with us since the early days of our program. However, we finally made this very difficult decision, feeling   that we could no longer postpone cutting program expenditures if we are  to keep the program running, providing support for other  participants who have no other resources. 

The  savings  by cutting these three women from our program will be about $ 285 per month  which is $3420  per year. As three of the healthiest  womein in the program, the amount of support which each of them received was at lower end in the range of support which we provide to any of our women.   As we move forward into 2024, we hope that further cuts will not be necessary because the circumstances  of most of the remaining women in the program are far more precarious,  to the point that we question whether they could possibly survive without the support that is provided by our program. 

Over these many years, your generous support and great kindness has enabled these fragile individuals and their children to live a simple , dignifiied life, instead of being subjected to the horrors of street life.  As a consequence of  reduced  funding, a consequence of  the economic  impact of COVID on our donors and funding, and which have  combined with the impact of inflation, we are faced with diffficult decisions to keep this program running.

We hope that  you will continue your support of this essential program as we move forward through the new year. At the present time, this program  has  month to month funding  which is not ideal for our  participants who depend up our program for long term assistance. 

Thank you again .

Barbara & Mark