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VSO's goals > HIV & AIDS
VSO has 20 programmes working in HIV & AIDS in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific. Our objective is to combat stigma, support prevention, and increase the availability of treatment, care and support for those infected and affected by HIV & AIDS.
In Africa, where HIV & AIDS is widespread and having a devastating impact on the lives of millions of people, our work supporting children has become a strong feature. By the end of 2006 15.2 million children had been orphaned by HIV & AIDS worldwide. Children as young at ten years old are often left to care for younger siblings or must become the family’s main earner, missing out on the chance to go to school and learn skills that will help them build a successful and healthy future.
VSO offers these children support and therapy to address the impacts of HIV & AIDS on their lives and volunteers are working with organisations that run community schools (non formal education) to ensure that children who do work or have to care for other members of their family are still able to get an education.
In Africa we also operate the RAISA (Regional AIDS Initiative of Southern Africa) which is a four-year initiative that works to tackle the impact of HIV & AIDS in South Africa, Mozambique, Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Namibia. As well as volunteer placements the programme includes, advocacy initiatives to encourage policy change; networking activity to build links between communities and governments; small grants to support awareness-raising and income generation activities and training events; international conferences and learning exchanges.
In Asia, where HIV & AIDS is not yet as widespread, we work with groups vulnerable to infection to raise awareness about how to prevent the spread of HIV. Those most at risk include street children, sex workers, drug users and males who have sex with males. We also work to increase public understanding about the stigma some groups face and how this affects their ability to access the information and healthcare advice they are entitled to. For example, in 2005, VSO Bangladesh worked with partners to stage a photography exhibition documenting the stories of individuals who have been discriminated and show how they have been excluded from community activities.
Inequality between women and men continues to fuel the HIV & AIDS pandemic and to increase the negative impacts on women and girls and we have highlighted this in our AIDS Agenda international advocacy work. The work calls on governments to recognise that the burden of caring for people living with HIV & AIDS is predominantly being placed on women and girls. These carers are usually unpaid, untrained, unsupported and unrecognised. A number of VSO programmes are also promoting the involvement of men in community and home based care and strengthening public health systems to relieve some of the burden on voluntary carers.
One of VSO’s priorities is ensuring we address the impacts HIV & AIDS in all our areas of work. For example through our secure livelihoods work in Mozambique, we helped support 14 women living with HIV, who had been widowed or abandoned by their relatives. The women were given a cellular phone to use to generate income, as well as training on financial management. Prior to the project, most of the women were struggling to make a living. They are now able to support their children, access medicine and eat more healthily. Having a livelihood also helped to reduce the stigma and discrimination that some of the women faced in the community.
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