HIV health training for ‘invisible’ child care-givers

Children enjoying performances of leading musicians at the World AIDS Day commemoration in Zimbabwe

10 December 2007: Children who are determined to nurse their HIV positive parents are receiving health training and support from Plan Zimbabwe.

As the bell rings to signal the end of school lessons at Zamchiya Primary School, a cluster of boys race ecstatically towards the playground. A lone figure dashes in the opposite direction, oblivious of the calls from his peers to join them.

Kuda, aged 11, is in a rush to get home to make sure his mother takes her antibiotics. All day Kuda has wondered whether he should remain in class or excuse himself to attend to his ailing mother. 

Exposed to infection

Kuda belongs to the growing generation of invisible child care-givers, who are driven by the passion to save the lives of their parents, at whatever cost. They hardly know any palliative care methods and rarely use plastic gloves when dressing their parents' wounds.

Their lives are split between continuing with their education and assuming full-time care duties to save, in most cases, their only surviving parent. But their lack of knowledge about HIV and AIDS exposes them to infection.

Health training

Plan Zimbabwe are helping children like Kuda, by setting up health training clubs, such as the Zamchiya Young Care-Givers (ZYCG) club for children aged from 7 to13. The children who attend the club all have one thing in common: they have all lost one parent and are taking care of the other, often under very difficult circumstances.

All the children have received training in palliative care and learning how to cope with behavioural changes; the training also covers vital areas such as HIV transmission, anti-retro virals, home-based care and nutrition.

Herbal therapy

Plan Zimbabwe also helped set up a herb garden at Zamchiya School, which every child in the village can use to help treat opportunistic ailments. The ZYCG club members have also received training in herbal therapy.

Herbal products from the ZYCG garden recently featured in a joint exhibition by Plan and its partner St Peters Kubatana at the national commemoration for World AIDS Day - attracting the attention of former Minister of Health and Child Welfare, Dr Timothy Stamps, who commended Plan Zimbabwe for facilitating such innovations at community level.

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