Eve for life: Making life better for women and children affected by HIV

By NADINE WILSON All Woman writer

Monday, December 07, 2009

EVEN as many continue to discriminate against those infected with HIV, local charity group EVE for Life Limited is committed to the cause of making life a little better for women and children living with or affected by the disease.

The group, which was founded in 2008 and was registered as a charitable group in 2009, depends on the voluntary service of its members to help restore hope and to advocate for the cause of women and children made vulnerable by their HIV status.

Managing director for the group Patricia Watson, said while there are programmes in place for those living with HIV, such as those geared towards providing ARV treatments and the mother-to-child transmission programme, there were none specifically targeting the psychosocial issues HIV positive women and children had to deal with in their daily lives.

"There are gaps in terms of the needs that are women-focused issues. For instance, you are going to be getting ARV's as a person living with HIV. When you go to the treatment centre, you don't necessarily get the breast cancer checks, the cervical cancer checks, the sexual reproductive rights information that you would need as a women living with HIV," she said. "The psycho-social support in terms of some of the issues that women experience, the counselling that is women-focused is limited."

The organisation consists of women, men and youths who have had some amount of experience dealing with those living with HIV. In fact, some of the committee members are also directly affected by HIV, making it easier to ascertain the needs of those who they seek to help.

The organisation's HIV advocacy co-ordinator Paula Samuels, who has been visiting HIV treatment sites for five years, said a number of HIV positive women do not have the moral support necessary to survive.

"Most of the times their needs are not met, most of them we get them housed and they go to the clinic for the antiretrovirals, but at the same time they need food to take the medication; most times they are unemployed and because they are unemployed, things are not going the way it should be for them," she said.

According to statistics from the National HIV/STI Programme, there were 993 reported HIV cases among women between January to December last year. This figure represents 53 per cent of the total number of HIV/AIDS cases reported last year to the unit. More than 11,000 women have been infected with HIV between 1982-2008.

As a result of the HIV prevalence rate among women, some children have been made vulnerable as they have either contracted the disease, or have lost parents. These are the children the group seeks to help by starting life-skills programmes geared towards building self-esteem.

OVC (orphans and vulnerable children) co-ordinator Rose-marie Ryder said the aim is to help children to find hope even while living with HIV or with parents who are HIV positive.

"We have looked at the adult face of HIV but there is no focus on children who are infected," she said.

One of the programmes geared towards helping vulnerable children is the organisation's "adopt a family programme" which was launched last Sunday. The programme seeks to get organisations or individuals to adopt a family affected by HIV and assist them for a year.

"It can be educational, it can be clothing somebody for the year, it can be providing food for the family for the year or providing a job," explained Watson.

The group also intends to host a treat for about 50 vulnerable children later this month and will be rolling out their "positive youth groups" come 2010. In addition to this, a year-long empowerment programme will be launched next year for newly-infected women.

But even as the group plans, funding remains a major challenge. Even so, the organisation's director of programmes Joy Crawford said they are still going forward.

"A number of things that we have done, we have shown that we are not waiting on the funding to get the work done. We have done the counselling, we have done the workshops, we have done the training, we have done the networking to get the support for the kids, and it is that energy that sets us apart from many others," she said.

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Eve for life: Making life better for women and children affected by HIV