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AIDS
crisis strains family life in Zimbabwe
James Elder, UNICEF-Zimbabwe
September 26, 2006
http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/zimbabwe_36003.html
MURAMBINDA, Zimbabwe – In a rundown
pole and dagga hut, where the only piece of furniture is an old
paraffin lamp, Mwaimbodei Chamutsa lives with her five grandchildren.
They sleep side by side, partly through necessity (it is a one-room
shack) and partly to ward off the cold.
The children are all orphaned, ranging
from 3 to 16 years of age. The youngest needs constant care and
medical help, for which Ms. Chamutsa carries her more than five
kilometres to the nearest clinic. The other children all need clothes,
food, shelter and education.
In a country where the life expectancy
for women is now below 40, Ms. Chamutsa, at 84, is in a class of
her own. And yet in another way, her situation is frighteningly
common.
While the western world debates pensions
and retirement ages, she wakes each day to help gather firewood,
fetch water and prepare porridge for her grandchildren before they
leave for school. HIV/AIDS has brought fresh burdens to a generation
of elderly women in Zimbabwe, who have buried their children and
then taken over the caring duties of a generation of orphans that
continues to grow.
Overwhelming pressures
Full-time caring
for toddlers and teenagers is an unreasonable burden to place on
her octogenarian shoulders, yet one that is repeated with terrifying
regularity across Zimbabwe – a country ravaged by HIV/AIDS and one
that the World Bank calls the planet’s ‘fastest-shrinking economy
outside a war zone’.
Here, one in
four adults is living with HIV; inflation is at more than 1,200
per cent; school enrolment is falling; malnutrition is climbing;
and life expectancy is crashing.
"The pressures
on Zimbabweans are overwhelming," says UNICEF’s Representative
in Zimbabwe, Dr. Festo Kavishe. "HIV-related illnesses kill
3,000 Zimbabweans every week, 100 babies become HIV-positive every
day, and 1.6 million children are orphaned."
Say them quickly,
and they are just more sad statistics from a troubled country. But
say them slowly and they represent just one view of the orphan crisis
unfolding in Zimbabwe and across the region.
For behind each
of these numbers is a child who has lost the chance for education
and good health, who was traumatized by the death of his or her
parents and who, at the end of it all, is at greater risk of HIV
infection.
International
support
One
area of immediate need in Zimbabwe is UNICEF’s community-based nutrition
care programme, which links HIV and malnutrition. Designed to empower
communities and create long-term solutions for food security and
public health, the programme requires $900,000 to continue operating.
But more broadly,
financial support from donor nations – including the UK Department
for International Development, the European Commission, New Zealand’s
Official Development Assistance Programme and the Swedish International
Development Cooperation Agency – means that Zimbabwe can now embark
on a massive programme to scale up existing work and improve the
living conditions of the country’s orphaned and vulnerable children.
Ms. Chamutsa and her grandchildren are among those who are benefiting.
"Looking
after these children is a huge challenge," she says. "They
require so much and often I have little to give. But I now get assistance
– like school fees – and then my grandchildren reward me with doing
so well in school, and I feel all my work is worthwhile."
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