Physical Health Zambia Project #6672

Health Care for 500 HIV+ Children in Zambia

by Power of Love Foundation

Health Care for 500 HIV+ Children in Zambia

Project Report | Mar 1, 2015
We are adding more 50 New Children to our Pediatric HIV Care Program

By Alka Subramanian | Executive Director/Founder

As a result of your generosity and support, we will be adding 50 new HIV positive children to our program this month. The children have been identified and will be receiving food, medicines and a package of life saving health care services till they turn 18 years of age. The package of health care services includes weekly health visits from community health workers, regular visits from the Project Nurse, psycho-social counseling, education in HIV prevention, and adherence monitoring and training for older children. In addition, their caregivers (most are single moms and many are grandmothers caring for multiple orphans) will be undergo a five day training in caring for an HIV positive child.

Impact of this program: Once the child has been on our program for a few months, the child improves in health (as measured by a gain in weight/CD4 counts), and has fewer missed days from school due to sickness. In addition to improving the child’s health, the child’s family knows how to take care of the child, and other sick members in the family and understand the importance of keeping children in school. In addition, family members begin to come forward for testing for HIV, which is the first step in prevention of this disease. Finally, women on our program share their knowledge about caring for an HIV+ child and become role models for others in the community

Training to Caregivers: The goal of the training is to equip parents/guardians in basic nursing skills and psychosocial counseling so that the child is under the care of a trained caregiver 24/7. Post training, parents/guardians are able to take care of different kinds of opportunistic infections that are common among HIV positive children at home and are able to identify situations when the child needs a higher level of care. As a result, most children to improve/stabilize in health and have fewer opportunistic infections once they have been on our program for 4-5 months.

Profile of the New Children: Out of this group of 50 children, 33 children are female and the rest are male. The children range in age from two to sixteen years with a majority of them in the age range from 6-12 years and most between 2-16 years. Since most of the children are of school going age, we will ensure that the children attend school and also educate caregivers on the importance of keeping children in school. Our goal is for these children to stay heathy and graduate middle, and high school.

With the addition of these 50 children, we will have a total of 250 HIV+ children on our program. Every one of these 250 children will receive food, medicines and a package of life saving health care services. As a result, most children stabilize/improve in health, attend school and live close to normal lives so that they can grow up to become contributing members of their community.

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Dec 30, 2014
Training Provided to Caregivers of HIV+ Children in Zambia

By Alka Subramanian | Executive Director/Founder

With your generous support, we continue to improve the lives of several hundred children and families impacted by HIV/AIDS and malaria in Zambia. Our pediatric HIV/AIDS care program benefits 200 HIV positive children directly, and an additional 1200 children indirectly as our trained caregivers share their learning with others in the community.

Training in HIV Care Provided to Caregivers of HIV+ Children

In November 2014, 29 new children were enrolled ( to replace the children who graduated as they turned 18 years old) in our pediatric HIV care program. This program provides food, medicines, and a package of life saving health care services to 200 HIV positive children and training in caring for an HIV positive child to caregivers. Training provided to caregivers ensures that the HIV+ child is under the care of a trained caregiver 24/7 and a result, caregivers with the help of our community health workers, are able to take better care of the children. The health of the children improves due to fewer opportunistic infections and the prevention of infections from turning into more serious illnesses.

Training Program: The caregivers were trained in basic home nursing and psychosocial care of HIV+ children. The objectives of the training were:

- Develop capacity for effective, comprehensive care and treatment of HIV infected children. For example, teach: (i) simple yet effective responses to common conditions such as diarrhea, fever, malnutrition, and TB; (ii) good hygiene; (iii) how to administer and monitor anti-retroviral therapy; and (iv) how to recognize signs of HIV/AIDS.
- To build a support group by developing relationships with other members of the group.
- To build on their already existing skills in taking care of sick children.
- To be able to discuss freely about HIV and support each other.
- To help the staff in the monitoring and evaluation of both the processes and outcomes of this training.
- To better respond to the changing needs of the community.
- To gain knowledge on the prevention of malaria and use of treated mosquito nets.
- To learn about HIV/AIDS.
- Discussed the need to include sexual and health education for both girls and boys.
- The role of the family in the upbringing of children, stages and characteristics of adolescence, and the unique needs and challenges that they face.
- Teach the importance of vaccination and regular clinic visits for children less than five years of age.
- Importance of early screening for cervical and breast cancer.

In addition, there were several discussions on the impact of HIV/AIDS on orphans. We discussed how the wellbeing of the whole family is affected by the social, economic and psychosocial consequences of HIV/AIDS. The participants were very interested in these discussions as most families have children who have been orphaned due to AIDS.

All 29 caregivers attended the seven day training with enthusiasm and asked several questions even though very few knew how to read and write. The training sessions were conducted in the local language and the methods used were mostly participatory and involved group work, storytelling and demonstrations. This made it easier for the participants to understand and learn.

To sum: The training was educative and our expectation is that it will be put to use by the caregivers on a daily basis. Since most of the caregivers are grandparents, it is important to refresh their memories regarding what they learnt during training. Hence, caregivers will continue to be educated during home visits by our community health workers.

At this time we are raising funds to add 50 new children to this program. Please donate generously so we can continue to provide quality health care to HIV positive children in Zambia. These services help improve the children’s health so they can stay in school, keep learning, and grow up to become contributing members of their community.

Thanks and happy New Year.

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Dec 15, 2014
A BIG Thank You and Happy Holidays

By Alka Subramanian | Executive Director/Founder

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