Give a future for 950 Indian kids living with HIV

Thanks for your support. Perhaps someone you know can help us with our year end target at goto.gg/34683. Anyhow please read Yeswanth’s story.

Yeswanth slipped through the net. His father had run off and his mum was so scared of the ‘Aids’ label that she took him to live with his granny in another District. We don’t see many four year olds with HIV these days so our volunteers took extra effort and phoned their counterparts in Sivaganga District who eventually tracked them down. Now they are both on treatment. His granny is sure that Yeswanth can now live up to his name which means ‘one who attains fame and glory’!

With your help we have reached $8000 of our 'giving season'  target of $10000. There were 60 donations on Global Giving's 'Giving Tuesday' on December 3^rd and our share of the bonus was $1727. Not only that, we have 15 new donors and two more have signed up for a monthly donation, Global Giving matches the 4^th month's donation 100%.

Through your generous donations we have enrolled 951 children with HIV in the six districts in South India where we work. We make sure they take their treatment, help them to stay at school, sort out problems with neighbours and help them to get government benefits. There are still some like Yeswanth who we can’t find or are refusing treatment, but we are not giving up on them!

We have counselled over 200 parents and guardians on the need to discuss HIV with their younger wards, this is important because all the research suggests that full disclosure by age 13 is best and helps to stop children from going into denial and rebelling against treatment when they get older.
We have discussed marriage with adolescents and young people with HIV on the pros and cons of marrying another HIV positive person and the need to disclose their status and how. We dialogue with government counsellors on the need to take up work with adolescents.

Thanks to all of you, and to those who have helped in December, remember there are still some days to go for us to reach the target. Please spread the word!

With very best wishes for Christmas and the new year,

John